The Argonaut Recall
by ARHalden
Summary: The heroes who made up a group the Argonauts have disbanded in the wake of collateral damage done while fighting the villain Gaea. Superheroes have been outlawed around the world. Most live among normal citizens, but suddenly, a group has begun to attack and kill these former heroes. Will Piper McLean and her former teammates be able to stop this group and save the other Argonauts?
1. Prologue

Name: Piper McLean

Occupation: High School Student

Alias: Songbird

Date: July 7 XX17

Prologue

Piper quickly runs across the battlefield looking for a place to hide, her left arm bleeding from a cut on her shoulder.. Her white suit was covered in mud, blood, and ichor, making her slightly harder to see. At least that's what she keeps telling herself, the smell was making her slightly dizzy and losing blood doesn't help. She makes it into a coffee shop, or what was a coffee shop a few hours ago. Piper takes this moment to catch her breath, take in what was happening. She pulls off her damaged shoulder pad and starts to scan the room.

"Hey Beauty Queen, you making a cappuccino in there?" she heard over her earpiece.

"Valdez, can it. I just needed a place to patch up my arm." She reaches behind the counter and grabbed a towel, before searching for a first aid kit.

"Songbird, Phoenix, use your code names," another voice said.

"Come on Jason, no one can hear us right now," Leo cheerfully said. Ignoring the two, she pulls open the small box.

"You never know who is listening." Pain erupted from her arm after she pours some alcohol onto the wound. A crashing sound takes her focus away from fixing her arm and she instinctively grab her repeating crossbow with her good arm. She takes aim at the door, before relaxing after seeing who it is.

"Thank the gods it was you Jace." He clears his throat, making her groan in response. "Thanks Ventus," she says in a monotone voice. He had a small smile on his face as he walked in. His green suit and gold suit shined from the sunlight. His blonde hair didn't seem to have a hair out of place. His blue eyes had a happy twinkle as he looked at her.

"Sorry. Here, let me help you with your arm," he says as he pulls out a chair for her to sit in. She takes a seat as Jason pulls out a small suture kit. The world was practically ending around them, and he took the time to fix her cut. "There you go, all better." She puts the damaged shoulder pad back on.

"Let's go, people need us," she says as she starts to walk towards the entrance.

"Maybe you should head back to the Argo. Have the healing chamber fix your arm."

"No way. If you are out here, I'm out here."

"I want you to be safe."

"I will, we still need to have a wedding don't we?" She starts to lean into him.

"Hate to break up the sweet romantic scene, but we are here to stop monsters," Leo says taking her out of the moment. " Cal...I mean Nymph is on her way towards your position. She can probably fix your arm better than the wind bag." Jason's face shows a twinge of annoyance.

"How are we doing on the offensive front?" she asks.

"Uh, hold on." After a few moments of silence, a few explosions ring through her earpiece followed by a crashing sound. "Our Giant is down, you guys can now praise me." She rolled her eyes at his statement. She tapped her earpiece once.

"Annabeth, your Giant down?"

"Songbird…"Jason said.

"Ugh, Minerva, is your Giant down?"

"We took it down," she heard from her blonde comrade. She noticed someone enter the door. Calypso walked through the open doorway, her flowing dress and brown hair blowing in the wind. "Any word on if Legion and her group took her Giant down?

"Just got word from her, Reyna and Frank took it down." Piper giggled as Jason threw his arms in the air. Calypso pulled out a small seed and put it on her arm. After a few gestures, the seed bloomed and spread around her shoulder. The pain started to fade, with it feeling very sore.

"Good, Oceanmaster and I are going after Gaia," she heard Annabeth say. Jason walked outside, his wind lance in hand. Calypso and Piper followed outside. She saw hundreds of monsters flying in the air, fighting about a dozen of her friends and allies. A bronze armored human flew towards her and her group, his jetpack roaring as it got closer to the ground. He landed and took off his helmet, revealing her crazy best friend.

"Hola," he said with a crazy smile on his face. "Supes, are you done taking care of her? The fliers could use the wind."

Jason gave him a slight glare before saying, "I'll go. Is the Argo in the air? We can have Piper heal for a bit before heading into the battle." She punched him in the shoulder at that comment.

"I'm fine, Cal put some of her magic seeds on it, it fixed it right up."

"They aren't magic," Calypso said blushing slightly.

"Well, there would be no way to do that anyways. The Argo has taken a lot of damage. The Aegis Shield is destroyed, the healing chamber is acting weird, and most of the weapons are offline. Festus is working hard just to keep it in the air."

"Damn. Alright, I'm on my way." Jason turned to Piper. "Stay safe."

"Same to you." The two stared into each other's eyes for a moment. They weren't sure if they would see each other again. "I love you."

"I love you too," he said as he kissed her. He closed his eyes before he flew off into the sky.

"Man that was cheesy," she heard Leo say. Calypso punched him in the shoulder.

"Stop it Valdez, you're ruining the moment."

"I'm there best friends, it's my job to ruin the moment for them." Calypso raised an eyebrow at that.

"So, it's Piper's job to ruin the moment for us," she said as she leaned into his arms. Piper chuckled slightly.

"Nah, she's way too nice for that." They looked into each other's eyes for a moment. "I have to go," Piper heard Leo say softly, barely a whisper.

"Come back to me, okay?" Tears started forming in Calypso's eyes. Leo gave a smile. His jetpack came to life and orange flames flew out of it.

"I'm a hero aren't I?" He quickly put on his helmet, then rocketed straight into the sky towards the massive ship, the Argo. Both Piper's and Calypso's eyes followed him onto the ship.

"You didn't tell him, did you?" Piper asked Calypso. She glanced at her. Calypso shut her eyes.

"I'm going to tell him after. It's too big of a deal to say before a big fight."

"I hope so, for both of your sake." A loud scream came from the beach. A plant monster erupted from the beach and was attacking all of the ground forces. Calypso looked at Piper, like she wasn't sure if they need to keep talking about this or if she should help the others. "Go, they need you," she told her. Calypso nodded and took off towards the beach. Piper ran towards the city, looking to help anybody around that needed help. A minotaur crashed through the wall to her left, a petite figure in his right hand. She recognised them instantly, her purple cloak giving her away. "REYNA!" The minotaur stops and looks at her. Suddenly out of nowhere, a figure flew in and double kicked the monster in the back, her purple cloak fluttering. Reyna broke out of the monster's grasp and swings her sword decapitating it in a single swipe. Reyna put her sword back in the sheath and helped the other person up off the ground. They started walking towards Piper. Both of them smiled at her, their faces matching the other in the same way.

"Nice job distracting them," Reyna said, well one of the Reynas. Her brow furrowed, and the Reyna on the left, turned into a purple mist and flew into the Reyna on the right.

"No matter how many times I've seen that, it is still weird."

"Don't judge, most of the monster's deep in the city have been taken out."

"Most of them are fighting the fliers." Piper's radio crackled to life.

"Percy and Piper, I've got a plan," she heard Leo say.

"Little busy here Valdez, make it quick," Percy said, his voice much more strained than normal.

"Alright, alright no need to get snippy. First Piper, I need you to get high. Wait, phrasing. I need you to get to a high location." Piper turned to Reyna and made a gesture telling her to give her a boost.

"Working on it." She took a few steps back and ran at two Reyna's who have their knees bent. When her foot made contact with their hands she was lifted and thrown up onto the building that they were right in front of. "Okay, I'm on a building."

From her new vantage point, she scans the scene. Almost a mile away, two large figures were fighting each other, one made entirely of rock and the other made of water. In the water figure, a small speck was in the center. Monsters were swarming it, but were getting shot down as soon as the got close. _Annabeth must be protecting him._ She thought to herself.

"Alright. Piper I need you to initiate 'Evacuate'. Inform the ESPer's."

"Got it." She clicked her earpiece, switching it to a different channel. "All ESPer's, I am about to initiate Evac, get out of there." Almost instantly, about a dozen fliers flew away towards the beach. Flying past them was the Argo. Piper took a deep breath.

"Aim for that radio dish," she heard Leo say. She opened her mouth and she threw her voice towards the radio dish. She watched as everybody started to move away from the two monsters fighting, even Reyna had left her and started moving towards the beach. "Great! Now Percy, you can move freely within your water man right?

"Yeah, what about it?" Percy's voice started to crack, he seemed to be at his limit.

"Move towards the foot, really close to the ground." Piper watched as the speck moved lower on the water figure.

"Done."

"Now, grab her." The water figure moved its arm and it was now giving the earthen figure a bear hug.

"Now what?"

"Now, it's my turn," she heard him say. This was the most serious she had ever heard him. There was a quick click and the radio channel went silent. Her radio automatically switched over to the open channel. "Hello you beautiful people, this is Captain Valdez broadcasting on the open channel.

"Valdez, what are you doing?" she heard Jason say.

"Seriously, we are retreating? I never retreat!" Clarisse said over the radio.

"As your captain..." Leo started.

"You aren't the captain," Annabeth quickly said.

"...I have lead you all into many battles…"

"What is he doing?" Piper heard behind her. She saw Calypso had somehow made it up to her. Calypso was one of the few who could resist her power despite not being an ESPer.

"No idea.

"...And it has been an honor protecting the world with you…" The Argo began flying towards the two figures. The ship started to pick up speed. Piper turned towards Calypso. Her eyes got wide, as if she realized what was happening. "...This is Phoenix, signing off. Good bye."

"...Leo?" Tears started falling down Calypso's face. Piper didn't know what to do.

"LEO!" She saw Jason flying straight towards the Argo, somehow almost catching up to the ship. Then all of a sudden, Jason made a sharp u-turn away from the ship, heading straight towards Piper. He crashed down a few feet away from her. She ran straight to him, taking his helmet off and looking for any signs of injury. Other than being unconscious, he was fine.

"Sorry Supes, Piper's order is also attached to the ship. She didn't realize that the radio dish was aimed straight at the Argo," Leo's voice came from inside Jason's helmet.

"...why?" Piper heard from behind her, Calypso's voice cracking. "Please, you don't have to do this!" The Argo went straight through Percy's figure and made contact with the earthen figure. The engines started making their high pitched whirring. Calypso swallowed hard. "There is something I need to tell you…" Suddenly, the ship initiated its speed drive. Then both the earthen figure and the Argo were gone, the city of Athens was silent.

"...we won, but at what cost…" Piper then weeped silently.

* * *

 **Hello, this is the author ARHalden. While this is technically not my first time writing, it's my first time putting it up where strangers can read it so please be nice...or be mean it doesn't really matter. I have most of the story ready so the next chapter is on you, the reader. Pretty much this story will only continue if there is any support. If not many read this, I probably won't keep writing. If you guys see any errors in this, let me know so I can fix it. Like many people I fix this in my head and don't really fix it with my computer. Thanks for reading.**


	2. Chapter 1

Name: Piper McLean

Occupation: Fashion Designer, Vigilante

Alias: Songbird (Formerly), Nevermore

Date: December 14 XX24

Chapter 1: Nevermore

Beep Beep Beep Beep. Piper's eyes fly open and she turns off her alarm. She yawns loudly before picking up her phone to look at the time. The clock reads 11:05 PM. Time for my night job, she thought to herself. She looks up and sees that she left her TV on before she went to sleep. She saw that the news report on the DRA was going on. She grabbed her remote and turned up the volume.

"...I'm telling you, the Demi-human Restriction Act is not going far enough. These demi-humans are capable of devastating feats," the man on the TV says. He was fairly young to be on the news talking this act. "We are doing this to protect the people. You have seen what these people could do! Look, just take any of the 'heroes' that have not disclosed their identities. You could classify most of them as weapons of mass destruction. Take Oceanmaster for instance, his ability to control water has been used in order to save us but it could easily destroy us in a second. Look, here is footage from the Battle of Athens." The screen started showing footage from the last battle with Gaea, it showed Percy and Gaea grappling each other. "Look at the size of the figure that he is controlling. Based on some calculations, that would be enough water to flood the city of Sacramento. We do not know who this person is, how can you sleep when someone could drown you easily in a city in the midwest, a place that is not used to having massive amounts of water. That's not the only demi-human who could create havoc in this country." A picture of Nyssa and Harley in their suits appears on screen. "Marionette, the young boy on the right, is known for creating various 'digistruct' constructs that have various abilities. One of his mostly unknown abilities is controlling machines. He has done this on multiple occasions to protect us. But wouldn't it be just as easy if he wanted to destroy us? He could easily get into places like the Pentagon or the a military base and be able to destroy our country from within. We need to know who he is to protect ourselves. Here is another person who needs to reveal themselves." A picture of Jason, Leo, and herself appeared on screen.

Piper's thoughts quickly turned to her friend. She spent months, if not years, searching for Leo. She spent weeks on boats scouring the ocean for an signs of the crashed Argo. She managed to fully fill out her passport stamps within a year of his disappearance. If Annabeth hadn't stopped her, she would have no money, no job, and might even have no house. She almost missed her entire first semester of college, barely getting passing grades. She almost destroyed herself searching for him. He was her family, one of the few things that anchored her in this world, and he was gone in a flash. The voice on the screen snapped her back to reality.

"...Huntress, Emperor, Checkmate. Those are the few that we can trust. We know who they are, they work with us to make this world a better place. They are in the light protecting us, not in the dark…" Piper switched of the TV. She walked past the mannequins, that held her newest fashion designs, and into her closet. Since she needed some sort of income, she decided to do what her mother always said she should do. It also gives her a reason for needing massive amounts of leather without her neighbors getting the wrong idea about her. She enters into her closet, walks to the back wall, and reaches under the shelf for the hand scanner. The back wall opened and revealed the three super suits that she owned. The one on the left was the white suit that she wore during the final battle with Gaea; still stained in mud, blood, and ichor, the suit retained all of the damages done. She kept it as a reminder of that day. The suit one the right was a copy of her old suit, but it was all fixed up. In the center was her new suit. In contrast to her previous suit, this suit was made with black leather. It had a utility belt that had many pouches for all of the gadgets that she could use while in the field. Unlike before, where she had a team and a mobile base, Piper was alone when she went out. She needed a new identity since Songbird was so well known, and wearing a white suit at night makes her so much more visible. The police were always on the lookout for her, since she continued to operate despite it now becoming illegal. She became the Nevermore.

Piper put on the black suit and put on her eyemask to complete the look. She pressed a button on the wall and a small elevator opened up. She got in and it brought her down to the basement of her apartment. It was one of the buildings that her father apparently owned. Because of this, she was able to make changes to it without it being too obvious. She couldn't really walk down the stairs into the garage dressed like this. She stepped out of the elevator and saw her motorcycle. It was a modified racing bike that was entirely black. On the back were two saddle bags that carried extra bolts for her repeating pistol crossbows, a change of clothes in case she couldn't make it away, and her old communicator. She got on and the motorcycle roared to life. She pulled up the GPS in order to head to the warehouse that she got information about. Piper took a deep breath before letting out an almost inaudible command. The people on the streets suddenly felt like they should leave the area, practically turning a 180 degrees to leave the area. Piper revved the engine then shot out onto the street.

It took her less than an hour to get from her Brooklyn apartment to the warehouse in Queens, mostly due to her using her powers to clear the roads of people. She parked her bike outside the warehouse and pulled out her grappling hook. She set it and climbed onto the roof and searched for an access point. She pulled out her lockpicks and popped open the hatch that leads from the upper layer to the roof. She dropped in and drew one of her repeating crossbows and double checked that the bolts that were loaded were the sleeping darts. Even if she was a criminal in the eyes of the law, she was still a hero. She stealthily heads to the wall of the office she was in and peaks out the window. She starts off by counting the amount of guards, but something wasn't right. She expected this place to be filled with smugglers, but all she saw were soldiers. Private military type, but soldiers nonetheless. They were wearing bullet resistant vests, had rifles, and looked ready to use them.

"Hurry up and get into position. The target will be here any minute. We have a job to do," one of them, presumably the leader, said. Some of the soldiers started moving barricades to the front door of the warehouse. Are they here for me? Is this a trap? Piper thought to herself. She saw the soldiers spreading out and she took her opportunity. She lowered herself onto a tall crate and made her way to the floor. I counted 10 of them, so let's take them out one by one. She peeks around the corner and shoots one of the bolts at the soldier's leg. The soldier looks down, then starts to turn before he collapses to the ground. She walks up to him and closely inspects his armor. It was a good thing she shot him in the leg as her bolt would not have pierced the ceramic plate in his vest. She grabs the bolt from his leg and stuffs it into one of her pouches. Crossbow bolts that not only fit her crossbows, but have an area in which she can put the sleeping serum were hard to come by and she can't keep buying those. It would provide a direct link to her and get her arrested. She starts making her way towards the front, taking out as many soldiers as she can. By the time she gets to the door, half of the soldiers were taking a nap. She climbed on top of a crate and looked at the scene in front of her. "Where the hell is everyone?" she hears the leader say. Piper took a deep breath and let out another inaudible command. All the soldiers, save for the leader, turned and started to walk away. The leader looked at her men before smiling. It took Piper way too long to figure out why her powers didn't work. By the time she did, the crate she was crouching on was in the air, with her on it. She fell off of it and her vision blurred for a moment. "I was expecting to kill one hero tonight, looks like I get to kill two. What was your name? Nevermore? Or should I call you Songbird? Oh yeah, we know all about you." Piper started sitting up looking at her attacker. She had brown hair and green eyes. Like the other soldiers, she had a bullet resistant vest on, along with a handgun strapped to her leg. Under the armor, she wore a black tank top and khaki pants.

"You're..." Piper managed to say, her head throbbing.

"Yeah. I'm a psychic, or an ESPer as your group called us. Specifically I have telekinesis," she said and as if to prove it, a knife that was on one of the sleeping soldiers flew out of its sheath and floated in the air next to her.

"Why? Why are you doing this?" Piper asked. She quickly noted that her second crossbow was still in its holster on her left leg.

"Why? Because I'm getting paid to do this. My benefactor, well, let's just say that he hates you guys. You Argonauts really pissed him off." As she spoke, the soldier's knife floated and spun slightly. Piper slowly starts to move her left arm towards the holster. "But that doesn't really matter to you anymore, you'll be dead." The knife stop spinning and the blade pointed at her. Piper quickly drew the crossbow from its holster and fired two bolts at the soldier. The soldier held up her right hand and the bolts stop mid air, inches from her heart. The knife clatters to the ground. "You really thought that would stop me?" Piper rolls to her right and grabs one of the rifles and fires at the soldier before taking cover. The soldier turned and holds up her left hand, the bullets stop in their path and the bolts fall. Piper holds the rifle in her right hand near her hip and holds the crossbow in her left. She gets out of cover and fires a volley of both weapons. The soldier held up her hand and the crossbow bolts stop, but the bullets continue on their path. Unfortunately, since the gun was not held properly, most of the bullets sailed past her. One somehow managed to hit her in the leg. Piper ducks quickly as the bolts that she fired flying straight back at her. "You bitch!" A loud crashing sound happens from above her. Glass fell from the skylight.

"Language!" She heard a very familiar voice say. An explosion comes from behind the crate she was hiding behind, followed by the sound of feet hitting the ground. Piper stands up from her cover slowly, unsure of what to expect. Once she gets a good view, she sees the soldier unconscious on the ground, possibly dead, and a man in bronze armor. He had a rifle like rocket launcher in his hands. He turned towards her, removing his helmet as he looked at her. It revealed his tanned skin and curly hair, a stupid grin on his face. "Hola, miss me?" she heard him say.

* * *

So I know that I promised not to make many of these author notes, but I realized that I never really created a schedule. So I plan, emphasis on plan, to upload chapters every 3 weeks on Fridays. This ensure that I can re read the chapter a few times before uploading it. I already had this chapter written so I could put it up if someone, literally one person, actually read this. Thanks to the readers who have reviewed, that is the best way to let me know who is reading this. I will not require certain amounts of reviews for chapters to come out, but if you do read it please review for my sake/sanity. So expect the next chapter to come out on March 31st.


	3. Chapter 2

Name: Piper McLean

Occupation: Fashion Designer, Vigilante

Alias: Songbird (Formerly), Nevermore

Date: December 14 XX24

Chapter 2: Protector

Piper could not believe what she was seeing; Leo Valdez was standing in front of her, and took down the soldier she was fighting. She blinked hard, there was impossible.

"Uh hello? Earth to Beauty Queen?" he said with a look on his face. Piper walked up to him and punched him in the face. He took a few steps back, obviously not expecting to get punched. Piper wasn't sure what to think, she fully expected her hand to go through him. She hit her head earlier so she thought that this was just some sort of hallucination. "Ow! What the hell?" She couldn't take it anymore. She walked up to him and wrapped her arms around him.

"You asshole," she cried out, tears flowing freely. "You're really here…" She felt him start to stroke her hair.

"Yeah, I'm back," he said softly. She pulled away and looks at him. A crashing sound interrupts her train of thought. Suddenly the air started moving erratically and she heard footsteps moving towards her. Piper grabs her crossbow with her left hand and aims at whoever threw the soldier. She sees who it is and her anger starts to rise. The wind swirl around the man in front of her. He has blond hair in a neat haircut, the wind not even moving it at all. He was wearing a purple button up shirt with a gold tie underneath an expensive black suit. He has his hands in his pant's pockets, and he wears a fierce expression on his face.

"You two always did get too distracted on the battlefield. Didn't even notice him, did you?" he said looking directly at Piper, his voice filled with malice.

"Jason? Dude. What the hell? You look like a stick in the mud. Why aren't you wearing your suit? Even if you are being support, you never used to let us do that," Leo said with a small grin. Jason turned to look at him.

"You're alive I see. No. I am not here for her," Leo makes a hurt face. Piper glares back, putting her crossbow back into its holster.

"What are you doing here?" she asked back, matching Jason's tone. Leo looked at her, unsure of what's happening. Jason glances at her before pulling out his phone.

"Got an email telling me to come here. They said it has to do with some business ventures overseas," he says nonchalantly. He puts his phone away and runs his hand through his hair.

"Um, well since you are here, why not join us? We can go on patrol, just like before. Then you guys can tell what I missed. Oh damn. I just realized I missed the wedding," Leo says with his hands on his head, his helmet falling to the ground. Jason and Piper remain silent, not looking at each other.

"Sorry Valdez," Jason says as he turns around to walk away. "She can do all that, she probably ecstatic that you're back." Piper looked at Leo. His face was hard to read, some sort of mix between confusion, sadness, and shock.

"Piper, what is he talking about? What happened?" Piper blinked a few times, not responding. She walks over and grabs her other crossbow off the ground and puts it back into the holster. She hates when Jason talks to her like that. She pushes a button on her wrist and she hears her motorcycle drive through the door towards her. She starts walking towards it, still not responding to him. She feels Leo grab her and turn her towards him and say, "Piper."

She waits a moment before saying, "We can talk about it in a bit...We need to call the cops and get out of here."

"Call the cops? Get out of here? What are you talking about? Normally we drop them off right outside the station."

"Things have changed Valdez. The world has changed." Piper reaches into one of the bags of her motorcycle and grabs her street clothes. She walks over to one of the crates and starts to close the door. "Stand guard and don't peek." She fully closes the door and starts to change.

"What are you…" she hears his muffled voice say. She pulls off her new suit and puts on a black T-shirt and some ripped blue jeans. She puts on a black leather jacket and laces up her combat boots. She grabs the gloves from her suit and puts them back on. When she finishes, she opens the door and puts the suit into the pouch that had her street clothes in it. She pulls her hair out of her braid and lets her hair fall naturally, still somewhat curly. She walks over and grabs a phone off of the psychic soldier and dials a number. The line rings a few times before the other person answers.

"Hello, this Detective Harper, what can I do for you?" The voice was a young female voice. Piper focuses on her voice box for a moment.

"Hello detective," she says, her voice in a distorted form of her normal voice.

"NEVERMORE! Get me a trace on this number. Now!" the detective says away from the phone.

"I'm in a warehouse in Queens, I'll text you the address. The one with the phone has telekinesis. Be careful. " She heard tons of scrambling on the other end of the line.

"Don't get cheeky, I will catch you Nevermore. You are a criminal." Piper chuckled at that.

"Good luck detective." She shut off the phone and threw it back onto the body of the soldier. She took off her gloves and put them in the compartment with rest of her suit. She glanced at Leo, who looked more and more confused. "What?"

"A lot has changed I guess. Voice thing was new."

"Well, I can't really use my normal voice now can I? Now take off your armor, you can't really walk around like that in the streets." Leo looked down at his armor before pressing a series of buttons on his left wrist. The back of his armor opens up and he steps out. Under his armor, Leo was wearing a white t-shirt and some jeans with grease stains. This was unexpected. For some reason when he walked out, Piper expected him to have more muscle. He was just as scrawny as before, if not scrawnier. The second he stepped out of his his armor, it began to shrink and compress, turning into a bronze backpack. He reaches down and puts it on, looking at Piper. "You got a jacket? It gets very cold in New York." He looks around and pulls takes one of the soldier's camo jacket and puts it on.

"Found one. So should we go or…" he trails off.

"Hop on," Piper says as she gets on her motorcycle. She pushes a button in the middle of the handle bar. This started the conversion to make it stand out much less. Leo looked at her with a worrisome look.

"We're taking that thing?" he asks in disbelief.

"No, I got on this because I have a limo outside," she says sarcastically. She raises an eyebrow at him. "You ever ride one of these?" Leo shook his head. He climb on the seat behind her. She looks back and says, "You should put your arms on me so you don't fly off."

"Where are we going?"

"We are going to a bar. After all of the things that have happened tonight, I need a drink." She felt him put his arms wrap around her waist and she shoots off into the night.

They drove for about an hour, making their way into Manhattan before stopping at a bar. Piper pulled into an alley right next to a bar named "The Half-bloods". She lets Leo get off before getting off the motorcycle herself. She grabs the key from the ignition and locks the saddlebags. Leo stands awkwardly off to the side, the army jacket not really matching anything that he was wearing. She loops her arm through his and leads him into the bar. When she got in she saw some familiar sights. There were a two guys playing pool in the corner, Dionysus was manning the bar, the painted leopard glaring at the crowd, and Melody serving food to people. One of the guys playing pool looked up and waved.

"Hey Piper, I was wondering if you were gonna show up. Whaddya say to game of pool? I've been practicing so I can finally win on that date with you."

"Sorry, I've got company today," she said with a smile.

"That hurts Piper, that hurts." He then looks Leo straight in the eye. "You treat her good okay? Or we will be having words." Leo nodded slightly before his eyes go wide.

"Wait, it's not like that, we aren't…"

"Mel, give us twice the usual at the table," Piper says cutting Leo off. She leads him to her usual table on the side. She sits on one side of the booth and Leo sits on the other, putting his suit/backpack next to him. Melody comes by with four beer bottles and sets them down.

"You know, you are the first guy she's brought here. You must be special," Melody says looking at Leo.

"No, like I was saying. We aren't like that. We are just friends, back me up Pipes," he says looking at her. Piper decides that she was not going to help him.

"No, we aren't dating," she says chuckling. Her and Leo dating was just something that made her laugh for some reason..

"So what are you guys? Friends? Coworker? Relatives?"

"Yeah, I'm a friend. I just ran into her tonight."

"Ah, I see. We don't see many of Piper's friends here so nice to meet you. I'm Melody, let me know if you need anything." She turns to walk away before Leo stops her.

"Can I get a water, please?"

"Right away." She turned to look at Piper and said, "I guess your friend doesn't drink as much as you do." She walked away as Piper grabbed one of the bottles and took a pretty big swig. Leo sits on the other side of the table and fidgets a bit. They sit in silence until Melody brought Leo his water. At this point she had almost finished her first beer.

"Seven years," she says looking into his eyes. "Where the hell have you been?" She sees him start to feel guilty. She feels her emotions are starting to get the better of her. She was so happy that he was here, right across from her, but she was feeling angry and sad at the same time.

"Sleeping. I've been on the Argo all this time. I woke up like a week ago," he says simply, as if it was the most obvious thing.

"That...that's not good enough!" she says almost slamming the bottle on the table. "I…I looked….for years and still couldn't find you….I failed you..." Tears started forming in her eyes as she says, "I'm sorry."

Leo looks at her and smiles, saying "Hey I'm here now. That's what counts." He reaches across the table and wiped some of her tears away. Piper nods slightly. She lets go of the now finished bottle and grabbing the second. His smile started to fade. "I've been gone for seven years and so much has changed since then. What happened?" He put his hands on his head, as if it started to sink in that everything around him was not right. "What happened to the Argonauts? Why wasn't Jason helping you? Why aren't you two together? Where is everybody?!" he says, his thoughts seeming to spill out of him. He breaths heavily for a few seconds. Piper finishes the second beer off and stares at it for a second.

"Short answer. You beat Gaea, the most dangerous demi-human out there, and people started to fear us."

"The long answer?" Piper sighs at his question.

"Well, like I said, we won. We saved the world in Athens, but the city got destroyed in the process. And like every tragic event, the people of the world were looking a person to blame. So, they turned to us. The demi-human threat as they called it." She puts the bottle down and points to one of the bottles in front of Leo. He waves his hand and she grabs it and take a swig. "The big shots in Washington decided to create something called the Demi-human Restriction Act. Pretty much said demi-humans are no longer allowed to demonstrate their powers without government permission, including the one who use it to save the day in Athens. Since they couldn't arrest us for using our powers before, something called and Expo Facto law, we had three options; give up being a superhero and retire, reveal our identity and work for the government, or keep going in the shadows and be considered a criminal who happens to fight other criminals."

"What? That doesn't make sense to me," Leo says confused.

"I just didn't like it. I mean I've got these powers, so I might as well as use them, but most of the Argonauts didn't agree with that outlook. There are only a few of us who still fight the good fight. Magnus and his close friends work in Boston and call themselves the Einherji or something like that. Carter, Sadie and their friends work in San Francisco and go by the House of Life. There are a few others who work in pairs, like Beck and Silena. They operate in Florida. I'm the only one out here in the New York area, but I mostly work in Brooklyn and Queens, since my apartment is near there."

"If most retired, where is everybody?"

"Well, most just went home. Percy and Annabeth still live here, in Montauk actually. They are married, two kids, with a beach house. They both teach at one of the high schools nearby. Frank and Hazel moved back to California, I think it was in LA, and they got married last year. Harley went back to his mom's house in Texas, I mean obviously since he was thirteen at the time. But the funny thing is that Reyna, Rachel, and Nyssa went with him. Rachel told me that his mother almost fainted at the sight of her thirteen year old son coming home with three beautiful women on his arms." Leo laughed. "The girls were going to UT Austin anyways so they just decided to go a it early. His mom was willing to house them for the summer before the school year started. Nico and Will are somewhere in China as part of some medical relief for the provinces that need help. Clarisse enlisted and is stationed somewhere in the Middle East. I don't really know where anyone else went." Piper stops and finishes off the beer in her hand.

"You said that we also had the option of going public with our identities, did anybody?"

"Yeah, Only three did and only one works for US government. Malcolm went out and outed himself as Checkmate. He wanted to work to protect the world, but didn't want to be restricted so much, and he was almost immediately snatched up by MI6. I mean who could blame them for wanting a spy who could see every possible scenario when fighting someone. Octavian went public, but only so he could create a company and get rich. That arrogant prick. Emperor Enterprises is now one of the more popular companies in the United States." Leo scratches his head at this comment.

"Wait, what does he sell. His power is to creates small spirit animals, how the hell does that make him a businessman?"

"Um, I don't know. I think he just uses his fame to sell stuff, like a Kardashian."

"So who was the third?"

"Thalia. She works as part of a US wetwork team called Artemis. The Huntress now leads her own hunters."

"Hold on," Leo says sitting up in his seat. "You are telling me Thalia works for the government. Thalia 'down with the man' Grace. Thalia 'anarchy, crush the system,' Grace works for the United States government?! You have got to be kidding me." Piper pursed her lips before trying to grab the last beer. Leo grabs it before she could. "Stop drinking!" She glares at him for taking it.

"Yes, she work for the government. I would like the drink now," she says enunciating every word. The two lock eyes for a moment before Leo lets go of the beer bottle. "Thank you." She grabs it and start to drink it.

"Why are you drinking so much? This can't be good for you," Leo says, looking very concerned about her. She sighs and stops drinking the beer. It was still half full, but she puts the bottle on Leo's side of the table.

"We are talking about things that I...I don't really want to remember. The alcohol just helps every once in awhile, you know?. Thalia works for the government because of me and Jason."

"What do you mean? What do you two have to do with it?" Piper pulls her left leg to the booth and hugs it.

"Thalia was staying with the two of us. Jason got mad at me and Thalia for continuing to fight crime. He told her that he does not have a sister who was a criminal. So, she left and the next day the news headline said 'Huntress revealed'." Leo nods and looks at the beer bottle. He grabs it and takes a sip, before almost spitting it back out. Piper chuckled at this.

"Well that was awkward." A moment of silence settles on them, only a TV and the clattering of pool balls making sounds in the bar. "So what happened between you and Jason?" Leo asks quietly.

"A lot of things," she replied just as quietly. "The DRA argument between us was the nail in the coffin, but it was already going down hill before that." She looked up at him and said, "He would say you were the reason we broke up."

"I was? For all you guys knew, I was dead."

"I think he felt like he was competing with you for me. I told him that you and I were not a thing." Leo nods silently. "But when you crashed the Argo, I kinda lost it. Annabeth would say that I didn't cope with your loss well and now that I think about it, I didn't at all. I spent tens of thousands of dollars traveling, searching for any clues that you were alive. And at first, Jason was on board and so were the rest of the group, but after four months of nothing, people started to give up. Pretty soon, it was just me and Jason, but eventually he gave up too. He would get mad whenever I took time to search some islands near Greece to look and we just fought nonstop. I searched on and off for about four years, actually any time I got off from college I was out of the country searching. Jason and I planned to get married after college, but we broke up a three months before I graduated." She looked at Leo and saw that he was just looking down, his hands folded on the table

"Piper, I'm so sorry." he says without looking up. He chuckles. "I guess we both screwed up." He looked up and smiled a sad smile. "I wonder what would have happened if I didn't crash the ship." She immediately cringed. She realized that there was something important that she needed to tell him, something about Calypso. She barely got his name out before the news broadcast got her attention.

"Breaking news, the founder of Emperor Enterprises and former superhero, Octavian Augustus has just been found dead in his work office earlier this evening. He was found stabbed multiple times, with his hero logo, an eagle, drawn in blood near his body. This come on the heels of the mugging and death of Malcolm Gray, the hero known as Checkmate, last week in London. The police have been yet to give us any information as to if these cases are connected, but we will keep you posted. Back to you Jeanette." Piper looked at Leo. Before either of them could say a word, Leo's watch started to flash and beep. He taps the watch face and a panicked voice erupts from it.

"This is Annabeth Jackson broadcasting on the Argonaut local channel. A group of people are attacking our home, we need help. Percy he...he's outside of our safety bunker all by himself. He locked me and the kids inside and I can't get out to help him. Please. Please help us. Piper, Jason, anybody, please hurry." The message began to repeat itself. Leo reaches over to his backpack reaches into one of the pockets and pulls out his wallet.

"How much does four beer cost?" he asks pulling some bills out.

"Just leave $40 bucks, we need to hurry." He throws it on the table and the two run out of "The Half-blood." Piper runs to the alley where her motorcycle was parked and pops open the compartment where her Nevermore suit was. She throws the suit on the ground and reaches in deeper and grabs two metallic plates. She sets on on the ground and jams the other into the brick wall. She pulls off her boots, holds her suit up in front of her, and steps on the plate. "Valdez, turn around and don't look."

"Yes ma'am," he replies spinning 180 degrees, putting his backpack on the ground. She taps the center of the plate on the ground and a blue light emanates from both plates. In a flash, all the clothes that she was wearing was pulled off of her, but just as quick as the clothes came off, the super suit was on her. She quickly looked a Leo's back as he stepped into his metal suit.

"You didn't look, right?" He shook his head. She sighed in relief, even though she it changed her clothes in about two seconds, there was still a one second period in which she was completely naked in an alleyway. She gathers her clothes and stuffs them in the compartment. She puts the plates back in and opens the other compartment to restock on her crossbow bolts. She debates internally before grabbing the old communicator and putting in the matching earpiece. She opens her map and looks at how long it will take her to ride her motorcycle from Manhattan to Montauk. "It will take us three hours with this traffic. Hop on, I might be able to make it only take two."

"That will take to long," Leo said as he walks up to her. He grabs her and picks her up like a knight would carry a princess. "A hundred miles, I can get us that far in less than an hour. Hold on to your butt," he says as he sends them both into the air.

"Oh my god, is that the Phoenix? He's back! Is that the Nevermore with him? Are they working together?" Piper hears dozens of voice on the ground say before fading away. She looks up at Leo who was mouthing something at her. She stares at his lips to figure out what he is trying to say. _Frequency 17_ , she figures out after him repeating it multiple times. She reaches up and taps the earpiece to tune it to the 17th frequency on the Argonaut comm channel.

"Finally, geez. How were you not on frequency 17 already? That was our group's personal channel." She looked away from his face and looked at the New York skyline.

"The Argonaut channels are always empty Valdez, I just lost the habit."

"Anyways, I was thinking of doing a dive technique with safecracker."

"How the hell will we do a dive and safecracker and VIP with two people? We need at least four for that."

"VIP?"

"Percy. We don't know the situation down there."

"Percy? He's got this. He lives near a beach, there is tons of water nearby."

"He doesn't use his powers often. We need to be ready for anything."

"Okay. So I guess we can go dive diversion with VIP asset."

"Understood." The two felt the tension as they flew above the ocean and beaches of Long Island. They made it to the beach house in forty-five minutes. Piper drew one of her crossbows while still in Leo's arms. He flies very close to one of the people shooting at a rock formation near the beautiful beach house and drops her right on top of him. She quickly orients herself and kicks him with both feet to slow herself down to lessen the injury to herself. She rolls on the ground a few time before scrambling towards the large rocks for cover. That's when she found Percy. His eyes were closed, his face was very pale, his abdomen was covered in blood, a Thompson submachine gun lays next to him in a small pool of blood. Her hand trembles as she brings her fingers to his neck to check his pulse. It was faint. A small groan comes from him the moment she touches his neck. Percy's eyes open up and he gives Piper a goofy grin.

"You know, you look like my wife's best friend, but I'm pretty sure she isn't into the kinky stuff." Piper shakes her head at his comment. She pulls his sweater open and pulls his shirt up to look at the wound. "Hey, I'm married and a teacher. I can't have a lady in black leather take my clothes off. What would my wife and the school board say? I think I'd get fired...and divorced… not necessarily in that order."

"Percy, you need to shut up now. I'm trying to save your life." She sees that there is only one place on his chest that was shot. She lifts him on his side to see if the bullet went through.

"My knight in black leather…" She glares at him before reaching into one of the pockets of her suit. She grabs a flask and her modified price tag gun. She unscrews the flask and holds it up to him. "Is this Nectar?"

"No, this is whisky. What I'm about to do is going to hurt and this helps with it." He takes it and takes a big gulp before coughing hard.

"That is some strong whisky." Piper grabs a standard bolt from a cartridge and puts it in his mouth.

"That's because this will hurt, bite this." She put the modified price tag gun against the wound. She pulls the trigger, but instead of a price tag fastener, a small thread pierces the skin and effectively sutures the hole. She does this multiple times to close the wound to stop the bleeding. Percy screams though the crossbow bolt before spitting it out. He breaths heavily for a few moments before being able to breath normally. He chuckles at looks at her with a weak smile.

"Piece of cake." He tried to stand up, but Piper pushes him back down. She reaches into one of the hard pouches on her suit and pulls out a syringe. She pulls off the cap, flicks it a few times, then injects Percy with its content. The color started to come back to him. "Did you just drug me? I need to pee in a cup for my job."

"Relax, that was Nectar." Percy sits up and grabs the submachine gun from the pool of blood.

"Aw man. Mr. Chase is so going to kill me. This thing is almost a hundred years old." He wipes the blood onto his jeans, probably just so it won't be as sticky.

"I'm pretty sure Annabeth is going to kill you," Piper retorts, offering a hand.

"Well, if she can kill me, my job has been done." He takes her hand and stands up. He puts the submachine gun in his hand and starts to stumble his way out of cover.

"Whoa what are you doing?" She moves into his way in order to stop him.

"I'm going to kill these guys for attacking my family." He leans against the rock as he loads another magazine into the Thompson and cocks it. "If I just get to the ocean I can beat these guys." He pushes off and starts to stumble as he walks.

"Hey, I've got this. Stay safe."

"But…" Piper puts her hands on his shoulders.

"No buts, you have a wife and two kids who are worried behind that metal door over there," she says pointing at the rock formation.

"I made Mr. Chase a promise when we first started to be heroes. I promised I would protect her even if it cost me my life and I intend to keep that promise"

"You can do that from here. Give me covering fire." He looks at her for a few moments before nodding. He limps to a small divot in the rocks and puts the submachine gun there. He looks and squints his eyes before turning back to Piper.

"I think I'm low on blood and hallucinating or I'm drunk. I'm pretty sure I saw a dead man fighting those guys." Piper looks past him and sees Leo fighting off all the attackers, his fists engulfed in flame and two flames on his back making wings.

"Well…" Piper trails off running into the fight. When you are barefoot and wearing a swimsuit, running on the beach is awesome. When you have combat boots, leather armor, about fifteen pounds of gear, and have to dodge bullets, running on the beach is not so fun. She draws her crossbow and fires a quick volley at the closest attacker. He falls fairly quickly. Within a few moments, Piper was already right next to Leo, fighting off the last two attackers. She throws a combo at the attacker in front of her before she grabs her and throws her into Leo's. Piper dusts her hands off and the duo makes their way back to Percy. Despite getting a shot of Nectar, Percy looks like he is taking a turn for the worst. He was struggling to stand up, leaning heavily on the rock.

"Heh, you did it," he says faintly before crumbling. Leo catches him and throws his arm over his shoulder. Piper walks up to the panel and enters what she thought was the code to the bunker, but it was rejected.

"Percy, what is the passcode?" she asks over her shoulder.

"073021," he slurs out. Piper enters it and looks at the six digit number confused.

"July 30th XX21? That's not an important date at all." Percy smiled weakly.

"Annabeth is July 13th, little Sally is March 30th, and Freddy was born three years ago."

"You clever bastard, you combined their birthdays to make a passcode Annabeth wouldn't guess." Piper presses enter and the massive rock begins to rise revealing a metal door.

"I have my moments." Piper goes to his other shoulder and lifts him up. Leo and Piper basically drag Percy down a tunnel into the main bunker where Annabeth was pacing back and forth.

"You idiot!" Annabeth says to Percy as she looks over him. "Where did he get hurt?" she asks flashing a light in his eyes, most likely looking for signs of a concussion.

"Gunshot wound to the abdomen, I put some quick sutures to stop the bleeding, but the bullet is still inside." Piper scans the room. The room had two tunnels connected to it, one was the entrance tunnel and the other went deeper into the bunker. The wall on the left was covered in monitors, displaying a few camera feeds of the beach house, while the others displayed a few random things. Near the monitors were about a dozen computer towers. In the center of the room, a large circular table took up a lot of space. On the right side of the room there was a bookshelf with various medical equipments. Next to the that were two mannequins with Annabeth's Minerva suit and Percy's Oceanmaster suit. Annabeth leads them to the table and they lay Percy flat on it. Annabeth runs to the shelf and pulls out some medical equipment. She has a scalpel, a syringe, scissors, a bottle of some sort of liquid, and tweezers. She uses the scissors to cut the quick stitches that Piper made. Then she injects Percy with the syringe. Annabeth looked like she could cry any minute, but was holding back her tears. Piper knew that Annabeth was using the first stage of her powers as there were tiny lines of illegible text scrolling along her eyes.

"Stupid. Why would you have Beckendorf put in a program that wouldn't let me out? Why did you have him give you special codes for this bunker?" Annabeth rambles as she operates on her husband. Percy just grins.

"You know, you are so pretty when you are angry." She glares at him. She grabs a magnifying glass and holds it up to the bullet hole.

"You are so lucky that none of your organs were damaged. That luck of yours will run out one day you know."

"That's why I've got you isn't it?" Annabeth doesn't say anything about that. She grabs the tweezers and takes a deep breath. Without any warning she slowly puts it in and grabs the bullet lodged in him. The second it is out of his body, she drops the tweezers on a tray and pours the liquid inside of the bottle onto his bullet hole. As soon as it makes contact with his skin, Percy began to heal. They all sighed in relief.

Annabeth looks at Piper and says, "Seawater. It somehow instantly heals him. Honestly I think we should just tie him up and throw him into the the ocean for pulling something like that." She crosses her arms and raises her eyebrow at Percy. He sits up and touches the wound before looking around. He raises his hand, like a kid would in high school.

"So am I hallucinating or is someone in the Phoenix suit standing in the corner?" Piper watches as Annabeth turns to look at Leo.

"I was going to ask about that, is that really you Leo?" Leo reached up and pulled off his helmet.

"Yes ma'am." She smiles and gives him a hug.

"Good to see you."

"Good to be back. Ow," he said bringing his hand to the back of his head. Annabeth pulls away and puts a hair into a small vial. "What was that for?"

"Being safe, 'Leo'." She walks over to a computer and puts the vial inside of it. "This will let us know if it really is you," she opens up a drawer and draws a handgun. "Or if I will need to use this." The room was remains silent for a few minutes as the computer continues to work. A loud beep cuts through the silence. Annabeth glances at it before putting the gun back into the drawer.

"That's a good beep?" Leo asks.

"Yes, it means you really are Leo." She glances at both Piper and Leo. "I'm sorry for doubting you. It's just with all that has happened today, I needed to make sure my kids are safe." Piper looks around the room of the bunker.

"Speaking of, where are the little rascals?"

"Sleeping, luckily. I managed to get them in here without waking them up."

"Well, what do we do now? Gear up for another attack? I'm guessing that they will think we are still alive," Percy asks from the table. Annabeth goes quiet and looks at the ground.

"They would stop if they think we are dead," she said quietly. Percy looks confused for a moment before realizing what she was saying.

"N...no you don't have to do this Annabeth." Piper sees tears start to form in Annabeth's eyes. She walks over to one of the other computers and inserts a key. She turns it and looks back at Percy.

"It was a nice house." Piper jumps when a muffled explosion shakes the walls of the bunker. She looks at one of the monitors and Piper sees that the beautiful beach house was in pieces and is on fire. Annabeth looks up at Piper. "Now we just need to find a way out and a place to hide."

"What about the Argo?" Leo chimes in. "It has tons of room, the cloaking field is one of the few functions that still work, plus it has all the computers we'd need to figure out what's going on."

"That...that could work," Percy replied. "Where is it?"

"It's near New Jersey, It could get here in two hours."

"Two hours?" Annabeth asks.

"Well, when I hit Gaea, I may have damaged some of the engines beyond Festus's ability auto repair. The hyperdrive and flight core, among many other things are offline. Only the standard engine works." Annabeth thinks for a few moments before looking at her watch.

"Alright. It's been a long day, even though it's only 3:15 AM. You two can get a nap in. Do you need some clothes?" Piper nods. She takes the clothes from Annabeth and walks down the hallway to one of the bathrooms and starts to change. She started to think about all the things that had happened in the past four hours. Her dead best guy friend has come back to life, her ex-fiance was almost attacked and killed, two of her former teammates have died, her other best friend and her family were attacked and could have been killed, and someone is apparently hunting them. She looks into the mirror and takes a good look at herself. She looks exactly the same as she did four hours ago, but she felt so different. She finishes in the bathroom and walks back to the main room. She pulls out the left gauntlet from her suit and taps a button. Her motorcycle will probably take two hours to get here, but it has important stuff in it. Piper looks up and looks around the room. Leo had stepped out of his suit and was sitting on a chair, cleaning his rocket rifle. Annabeth was at one of the computers typing something. Percy, who had put a new shirt on, was napping against one of the walls. "You should get some sleep," Annabeth said pointing to a mattress in the corner.

"Did I miss anything?" Piper asks while setting her suit on the floor near Leo's, Annabeth's, and Percy's.

"Looks like a helicopter is heading towards us, but it's pretty far. It will get here in about an hour and forty-five. We can just wait it out, then get to the Argo," Leo says still not looking up from his rifle.

"Okay, so what do you need me to do?" Piper asks looking at Annabeth.

"Get some rest. I hate to admit it, but you are the most useful among us in a fight."

"Hey!" Leo says raising his hands in the air. He grabs the rifle again before it falls to the ground. Annabeth gives him a look.

"You have been in a coma for seven years. Your fighting slight has gotten a bit sloppy, even for your standards. Piper is the only one of the four of us who has been training and fighting these past seven years." She turns towards Piper. "Go to sleep."

"But I'm not tired. I'm good to go."

"Piper McLean," Annabeth says standing up, putting her hands on her hips.

"Fine Mom." The two begin to stick their tongues at each other. Piper walks over to the mattress and lays down. She looks at Leo from the mattress and asks, "Are you going to get some rest Repair Boy?"

He stop cleaning his rifle and says, "Nah, I'm still good to go, get some rest." Piper nods and looks up at the ceiling. The faint sounds of a brush against metal and the clattering of keys of a computer soothe her to sleep.

* * *

 **Next update: April 21**

 **Please review and let me know what you liked, hated, or if I messed up grammatically. I'm a college student with a 3rd grade understanding of grammar. (That's a joke if you were wondering. It's more like 5th grade)**

 **(edited April 29th & May 4th. Messed up the year in one sentence. I fixed it to ensure continuity with the other times the year is written. Also messed up Silena's name and misspelled sentence.)**


	4. Chapter 3

Name: Leo Valdez

Occupation: Deceased (Formerly), Vigilante

Alias: Phoenix

Date: December 15 XX24

Chapter 3: Recall

Leo sits at one of the computers surfing the internet, trying to catch up on all of the things that he had missed. During this time, he found out that Piper was a well known fashion designer, Jason was some corporate big shot, Percy was the coach of a national level swim team, and Annabeth has like three bachelor's degrees and a doctorate. None of this feels real to him. He glances at Piper's sleeping form and looks at her. She was still the same Piper who had hid on his roof when she was mad at her dad for missing her birthday, the same Piper who had beat up his childhood bully, the same Piper who was his first kiss. She was the same Piper, but she didn't seem like it. He turns away from her and looks at Annabeth and Percy. Annabeth was constantly checking his wound as he slept. She looks up at Leo.

"You're not gonna get any sleep?" she asks.

"I've been asleep for seven years. I don't need much more." Annabeth raised an eyebrow.

"You know that's not how the human body works." Leo chuckles.

"Of course, Chase...er Jackson...uh Chase-Jackson? Do you hyphenate? You look like you'd hyphenate."

"Most people hyphenate for me, but legally it's just Jackson." She smiles and brushes some of Percy's hair out of his face. "Who would have thought that Percy and I would have gotten married."

"Literally all of us thought that." The two laugh for a few moments. "Is it really that hard to believe? You guys were always the perfect couple." Annabeth's smiles faded.

"Even perfect couples have problems." Leo hears Piper and Percy start to stir.

"Sorry were we too loud?" Annabeth asks. Piper shakes her head, while Percy nods and curls back into a ball and goes back to sleep. Leo chuckles at Percy's antics.

"How long was I out?" Piper asks.

Annabeth looks at the clock before saying, "About an hour and a half." She nods and grabs one of her gauntlets. She stares at it for a while before looking up at one of the computer monitors.

"My motorcycle is here," she says as she stands up. Annabeth gives a look of confusion.

"Are we bringing that with us?"

"Wasn't planning. I was just gonna grab some of my supplies from it, but if we could take it with us that'd be better." Leo thinks for a moment before coming up with a plan.

"I know, I'll get Arion to pick it up." Leo walks over to his suit and starts tapping on one of the wrists. A small holographic human appears, flickering between a yellow and white color. "Buford, tell Arion to send the drone." The hologram nods before disappearing. When he turns around, he notices at there was suddenly a box near one of the tunnels. "Was that always there?" he asks Annabeth. She sighs and walks over to the box.

"Kids, get out of the box," she says not even picking it up. The box stands up and two sets of legs appear beneath it. The box falls over and in its place were two children. The older of the two looked like a five year old Annabeth, but instead of gray eyes, she had Percy's green eyes. On the other hand, the younger of the two looked like a three year old version of Percy but with Annabeth's eyes. Next to the young boy was what looked like a puppy made entirely of water.

"You are no fun mom," the girl says putting her hands on her hips. She scans the room and runs straight to Leo and asks, "Who are you? I've never seen you before." Leo scratches his head. Even though she looks like Annabeth, she seems to act a lot like Percy.

"I'm Leo. I'm a friend of your mom and dad." She nods a bunch of times before sticking her hand out.

"My name is Sally. Sally Jackson. Nice to meet you." Leo sticks his hand out for a handshake, which shakes three times before letting go and running over to Percy. "Daddy, wake up. I'm bored." She shakes him awake and gives him a hug. Leo looks at the boy, who decided to hide behind Annabeth's leg, the water puppy sitting on the ground next to him. Annabeth pulls him out from behind her.

"Say hi," Leo hears Annabeth whisper to her son. He faintly hears the boy say hi before running over to Piper. "He's just very shy. His name is Freddy."

"Freddy," Percy says from his spot on the floor. Suddenly, the water puppy falls to the ground and a puddle of water forms where the dog disappeared.

"So these are your kids," Leo says, somewhat in disbelief. All of these new changes just continue to pile up on him. Annabeth opens her mouth to say something, but an alert appears on one of the computers. They all rush to the screen to see what was happening. Leo knows that it can't be the helicopter since they already got that alert and it still has not gotten here. It wasn't supposed to show up for another twelve minutes. Leo sees that there is a fast moving object headed straight towards them, moving much faster than the helicopter. "What is that?" Annabeth types at a blinding speed. An IFF tag suddenly appears on the fast moving object, identifying it as 'Ventus'.

"Jason?" Piper asks in a confused voice. "What is he doing in his super suit?" Annabeth thinks before hitting her head with her palm.

"When you two came to our rescue, did you send a 'message received '?" Piper and Leo look at each other. Annabeth groans loudly. "If you didn't send one, which I'm guessing you didn't, the message will go on repeat for everybody. Including Jason, who apparently still thinks that Percy and I are being attacked."

"Oops." Annabeth puts to fingers on her temples and closes her eyes. Sally looks at her mom looking concerned. For a second, Leo swore that her eyes had lines appear in front of them, but as soon as he blinked they were gone.

"Okay, Leo how far away is the Argo?"

"Like twenty minutes, give or take." Annabeth nods a few times before opening her eyes. When she does, her eyes were full of lines of illegible text. He knew that those lines were full of calculations as to what to do in this situation.

"Damn. Okay. So here's the situation. Jason is going to get here exactly 53 seconds before the helicopter will be in range of any sort of attack. The Argo will be 8 minutes away, approximately 13 miles away. Piper, Percy, the kids, and I can take the aquatic escape pod, and make our way to the Argo. If I remember correctly Valdez, you know how to fire anti-tank rocket. You used it against Polybotes, can you still do that?" Leo nods. "Good, you can go out there and shoot the helicopter down and bring Jason to the Argo." Everybody nods except for Sally. She looks up at the rest of us confused.

"If Mr. Leo is going to shoot the helicopter, why are we taking the ac-wat-ic pod thingy?" Piper laughs at the young girl's comment.

"Your mom probably thinks that he will miss," Piper says with a smirk. Leo glares back at her before turning to Annabeth. He was expecting her to give a rationale as to why, but she remains quiet.

"Wait, no way! You think that I'll miss!" he says realizing that what Piper said was true. Annabeth starts to adjust her ponytail, something that she tends to do when she is uncomfortable.

"I am just making a plan in case you do miss...based on past experiences."

"What do you mean past experiences?"

"You did miss throwing your fire-fighter grenade," Piper suggests.

"And you did hit the ground like a foot in front of the target that one time we were trying to use throwing stars," Percy chimes in.

"And you did hit the wrong target, that four feet away from the actual target, when we did archery that one summer," Annabeth concludes.

"I will not miss," Leo says with certainty, then he starts to think. "So...do you have an anti-tank rocket?"

"Of course we do. We have a secret bunker, escape pods, a tommy gun, and an ice cream machine. Why wouldn't we have one?" Percy says as if it's the most obvious thing in the world. Annabeth and Piper both facepalm, while Percy grins and Sally giggles.

"So that's the plan. Let's get everything packed up and suited up." Everybody then went to separate areas. With there only being about ten minutes left to go, people tend to move quickly. Leo walks over to his Phoenix suit and makes sure that everything was in full operation. Piper grabs her suit and walks down the tunnel that leads deeper into the bunker, most likely to change into it. The Jackson family walks over to Percy and Annabeth's suits. Annabeth walks past the two suit and presses her hand against the wall, revealing a secret compartment. Percy, Sally, and Freddy all stand in a line and start to hold the weapons and various other things that Annabeth hands them. She pulls out Percy's sword, his shield, his trident, a flashlight, a battle ax, a morning star, Annabeth's dagger, and Annabeth's dragonsword. Percy puts holds most of the items in his arms, but gives Sally the shield and Freddy the flashlight. Annabeth pops her head out and starts to take the suits off of the mannequins. She first takes her suit off. Annabeth's suit was a dark grey jumpsuit with carbon fiber armor pieces on the wrists, legs, and on the chest. Annabeth's symbol, two pointed eyes with horizontal lines within them. There was a short light grey cape on the back with the same pair of eyes. The suit also had a a small single lens on the left eye, some sort of scanner that Annabeth used in combat. Once Annabeth gets the suit off of the mannequin, she folds it and hands it to Sally. Percy then leads the two kids, all of them walking in line, with a suspicious water puddle following the group down the hall. Annabeth then starts to take Percy's suit off the mannequin. Percy's suit, if you could consider it a suit, consisted of a dark blue hoodie, jeans, skater shoes, and fingerless gloves. On top of the hoodie and jeans were shifting metal plates on the chest, shoulders, and legs. These plates were painted sea green, and there was a dark blue trident painted on the chest piece. There were two small air canisters attached to the back portion of the chest piece, but it was filled with sea-water instead of oxygen. He, like Piper wore an eye mask to hide his identity, but his was the same sea green as the metal plates. Annabeth folds the suit and puts it on the ground. She walks back over to the panel and pulls out an old collapsible rocket launcher and hands it to Leo. He sets it on the ground and presses his hand on the back of his suit. The back opens up and he steps inside. Once the suit closed behind him, Leo ignited himself. His armor required fire at a very specific temperature in order to turn on, a safety precaution to prevent someone from stealing his armor and ruining his name. The suit whirred as it turned on and it began to display things on his HUD. The poop emoji popped up in front of him. He rolled his eye at the AI that helps him run the suit. The AI, Buford, was designed to show his symbol when the suit powered up, but someone, most likely Piper, decided to "teach" Buford about emojis.

"Buford, did Arion pick up Piper's motorcycle?" The thumbs up emoji appeared on screen.

"You all set Valdez?" Annabeth asks, her arms full of Percy's suit and a few other things.

"Yeah, all set. Just have Percy put the pod in the jet ski dock." Annabeth nods and gives him a smile before walking down the tunnel. Piper walks past her and right up to Leo. She is wearing her Nevermore suit again and her hair was once again in a braid.

"Stay safe Valdez, I just got you back. And save the idiot if you can," she says putting her hand on his shoulder.

"You walked all the way back here to tell me to be safe? Piper, you can't just do that to a guy. He might get the wrong idea." She narrows her eyes before punching Leo, but she recoils. Apparently she forgot that he was in a metal suit. She glares at him and walks back down the tunnel, holding her right hand close to her. Leo chuckles and picks up the rocket launcher that Annabeth had given him. He needed a launcher because his rocket launcher was highly modified to the point where he can only use certain rockets. The only ones that would work are the smaller concussion rockets that he uses. They were non-lethal, but pack enough punch to push people a few feet away. Leo walks out of the building and looks at the scene in front of him. The wind shifted most of the sand around, erasing a lot of areas that were covered in blood. The bodies of the attackers were scattered about. Luckily, or unluckily depending on your view, none were killed in the battle, but some looked like they were getting close. Leo looks at the clock and sees that he still has four minutes until Jason shows up. He starts to move the bodies to a rock and zip ties them all together. If this was seven years ago, he would have flown all of these guys to the police station and waited for pictures and numbers. He shakes this off and looks out into the horizon. He could see the helicopter in the distance, but he knows that it was way too far for this rocket, they would most likely evade it if they see taps his fingers on the launcher as he waits. The winds around them seem to pick up around him. _Jason must be close_ , Leo thinks to himself. A loud crashing sound comes from behind him and tons of sand flies into the air. The sand fell into the areas of his armor that did not cover his skin, mainly around him mouth and his jaw. Leo spits multiple times to get the sand out of his mouth. Once the sand settles firmly on the ground, he sees Jason standing in the crater, looking around frantically. Once he sees Leo, Jason climbs out and grabs him by the shoulders.

"Leo!" Jason's eyes were wide and red, as if he had been crying before he came here. "Was she with you?"

"We aren't safe here," Leo says trying to get Jason to understand.

"Are they safe?" He pushes Jason's hands off his shoulders.

"Percy and his family are on their way to the Argo. Go to these coordinates," he says trying to get Jason to move.

"They are safe?" Jason asks weakly.

"Yes, now move!" Jason seems to get the urgency and he flies off quickly towards the ocean. Leo extends the launcher and puts it on his shoulder. Buford then outlines the helicopter and gives him a line where he needed to fire the rocket. The fact that the suit had an AI that could help him aim was the reason why he was certain he wouldn't miss. He lines up the rocket launcher with the guidance and he fires. He looks at the launcher before throwing it on the ground. He watches the rocket fly at the helicopter and before the rocket gets too close to the helicopter, a high pitched _whish_ sound happens. The rocket doesn't even explode, it instead gets covered in white and it falls short. Leo feels his heart rate increase, he knows exactly who was in that helicopter. He takes a step back. A silver figure flies out of the helicopter and lands in front of him. She was wearing an almost exact replica of Leo's armor, the differences are that hers was silver instead of bronze and hers was much more...form fitting. Her black hair flowed out from the back of her helmet.

"Hello Leo, it has been such a long time since I've seen you. I've missed you," she says with an almost seductive voice. He feels his hands tremble within his suit. He closes his fist before opening his and hands, causing the holes in the center of his suits glove. Flames erupt out and engulfs his hands.

"Why...why are you here?" She puts a finger up to her mouth and looks up as if she was thinking.

"Obviously I came here to see you." She smiles at him, her bright white teeth match her pale skin.

"Lies."

"Oh Leo, you know that I'd never lie to you. I love you after all."

"Sure you do, and I own a pet dinosaur."

"You always do this, I hate when you do this."

"You don't know anything about me!" he says, feeling his anger rise.

"Of course I know you, I am your oldest friend after all." Leo brings up both of his hands up and fires a stream of flames at her. She half heartedly raises on hand and a sheet of ice flies from her hand and it meets his flames. The two beams seem to be even, but the ice started to creep its way towards him. The ice eventually pushes past his flames and his left arm gets encased in ice. He screams out, his arm almost immediately goes numb. The cold seemed to pass through the armor and freeze it in place at the same time. He falls and clutches his arm. She sighs and shakes her head at him. "You know I didn't want to do that. I am so much stronger than you."

"Why?! Why are you here?" he asks through the pain. Leo ignites his right hand and starts to melt the ice.

"Why? I'm here because you are here. You and I need to talk."

"We are right now aren't we?" Most of the ice melts off of his arm, but it still felt numb. He stands and looks at her.

"It's important," she says in a quiet voice. Leo turns on his jetpack and floats in the air.

"Sorry lady, I don't talk with crazy people." He turns and starts to fly off.

"Check your email when you get back to your ship," he hears her say as her voice fades into the distance. The feeling starts to come back to his left arm, but it still felt numb. He tries to clear his head, forget that he saw her. His heart continues to pound in his chest. He flies over the Atlantic in silence for a few minutes. The bronze ship was very hard to see in the ocean. He lands on the deck of the ship and sees Piper's motorcycle being lowered into the vehicle bay. Leo then sees Jason pacing back and forth. This is radically different from how Jason normally acts, as he is normally the most composed of the Argonauts. Leo gets an alert on his HUD, telling him that a vehicle has attached to the Argo via the aquatic dock.

"Hey, let's go to the command center," he says to Jason. Jason stops pacing and nods before following Leo into the ship. The duo go down a flight of stairs and turn into the first room. The command center was one of the largest rooms in the Argo. On the far end of the room, which is the front of the ship, had the captain's chair and console. The chair itself was just a modified office chair, but the console had all of the controls to the ship's movement. Most of the time, the chair was empty as the AI Festus runs the ship. In the center of the room was a large table that has a holographic projection of the globe. On the left wall was a wall that had a dozen computer screens that displayed various things on them. On the wall opposite of that was a large map of the world with several chairs stacked next to it. The wall that Leo and Jason came from had another entrance that leads deeper into the ship. Jason's brow furrows and he smiles slightly.

"I never thought I'd see this again. I half expected this to be covered in cobwebs, or fish poop or something." Jason grabs one of the chairs and pulls it up to the table.

"It would have, but Festus is great at cleaning stuff." Leo steps out of his suit before grabbing a chair and setting it next to him. He hears footsteps coming from the other hallway. Jason looks as if he was about to cry.

"I screwed up Valdez," he says quietly.

"We all screw up. So what'd you do?"

"I pushed her away. I made her hate me and I broke up with her even though I still love her." Leo snaps his head towards Jason.

"Wait, what?" Jason puts his head in his hands.

"And now...it's too late." Leo gives him a look of confusion. Before he could say anything, Sally came running into the room with her arms out while making airplane sounds. She runs right up to Leo and salutes at him.

"Hello Mister Leo. We have arrived," she says running around the table. Now walking up the stairs is Annabeth, followed by Percy who was carrying Freddy on his back, and behind them was Piper. Somehow there was a small puddle of water that seemed to be following them somehow. Jason looks up and his eyes go wide when he sees them.

"Jason, what are you doing here?" Annabeth asks. Jason ignores her and walks straight up to Piper and pulls her in for a hug. Piper looks very surprised and immediately pushes him back.

"What the hell are you doing?" Piper asks angrily.

"You're alive!" Jason whispers.

"Of course I'm alive."

"How did you…"

"What made you think she was dead?" Annabeth asks, putting both of her hands on Sally's shoulders to keep her from running around.

"Your apartment," he says. "Festus, local news. Channel 7." The screen that had the world map quickly changed to a news broadcast. "Rewind about three hours." The broadcast began to move backwards very quickly before stopping at a breaking news alert.

"Breaking news, an apartment building in Brooklyn is currently on fire. According to eyewitness reports, a sudden explosion in one of the apartments is the cause of the fire. It is currently unknown if there were any injuries or casualties. The explosion and fire appear to originate from a single apartment in this building." The broadcast then cuts to footage of the building in flames.

"That's my building. Wait, that's my apartment," Piper says pointing at the section of the building that was most in flames.

"I've been trying to call you, but when you didn't answer…" Jason trailed off, tears still in his eyes. Piper nods at him silently. She shakes her head. Annabeth and Percy had pulled up chairs around the table and they all sit down. Sally apparently got tired from running around and decides to take a nap against a wall, while Freddy fell asleep while sitting on Annabeth's lap.

"This can't be a coincidence," Piper says. "This makes five attacks on Argonauts in the past two weeks, four of which happened in the last twenty-four hours."

"If they are attacking Argonauts, we need to warn the rest of them," Annabeth says. "If only there was a way to quickly talk to all of them. The open channel isn't worldwide." Leo smiles and everybody looks at him like he's nuts.

"Well, I've got something for this. Nyssa and I knew a guy who puts satellites into space. We were able to get a small one into space that is still in orbit. We can use it to send a brief message to all Argonaut Comms."

"Why didn't we use that before?" Piper asks.

"This was more for after Athens. It wouldn't make sense to use it before since we all were living on this ship. I can send out a message to warn the rest of them. We can get everybody back on here to try and figure out what to do." Leo stands up and walks over to a computer. "I can work on this, you guys can get settled into your rooms and stuff." Everybody else begins to look at each other.

"Um, do we have any extra rooms?" Annabeth asks, making sure Freddy doesn't fall off. "They may be little, but they could use some extra space." Leo thinks. From what he remembers, the Argo was completely packed, to the point where a lot of people were sharing rooms, often with a significant other.

"I know this sounds bad, but we could clear Malcolm and Octavian's rooms out. The kids can stay in Malcolm's since it was across from your guy's room." Annabeth nods. Leo then looks at Jason and Piper. "Are you guys going to share a room since…" Piper and Jason look at each other for a moment.

"I don't think it'd be a good idea," she says turning away from him.

"I can move rooms," Jason says not looking at Piper.

"I'll have Festus clean those out and he put Jason's cloths in Octavian's. His room was two doors down from my room." The room gets quiet. "I'll get started on contacting the satellite to send the message to the others." Jason stands up.

"I'm gonna head to the armory, see if I have any spare pieces of equipment here," he says walking out of the room. Percy stands up and kisses Annabeth on the top of the head as he heads towards the exit.

"I'm gonna grab our suitcases and put our armor in the armory," Percy says.

"Hold on mister," Annabeth says stopping Percy. She points at Sally and says, "Can you bring her to our room for now at least." Percy walks over and slowly picks her up. Piper and Leo give him a weird look.

"Trust me, she is like Annabeth, you do not want to wake her up." Annabeth glares at him for that comment. He carries her out of the room in a princess carry.

"I'll help Percy out," she says picking Freddy up and carrying him out. Piper and Leo were the only ones left in the room. As he types, Piper starts to put the chairs away. He hears her shuffling stop suddenly.

"Hey Valdez, you got something to tell me?" she asks. Leo stops typing.

"No, not really." He starts to type again. He feels something hit him in the back of the head, then it clatters onto the metal ground. As he turns to look at Piper, he rubs his head. "What was that for?" She points at the floor.

"Wanna explain that?" Leo looks down and sees a small shard of ice on the ground. He looks up and sees that there are still some small pieces of ice on the back of his armor.

"Would you believe me if I said it's been there since I last saw her?" Piper crosses her arms and raises her eyebrow.

"So when was the last time you saw her?" Leo realized that he screwed up. He did not expect her to ask him that.

"Would you believe me if I said that it has been there for seven years?" She does not answer him and continues to stare him down. "Fine, I saw her when I shot the helicopter down. Apparently she was inside it."

"When were you going to tell us?" she asks as she closes the gap between them.

"Would you believe me if…" Leo starts to say.

"Only if its the truth," she says cutting him off. At this point, she was right in front of him, not breaking eye contact the entire time. "Tell me the truth," she said, her voice sounding very soothing despite sounding very angry. His mind seemed to give in, wanting to do what she said.

"I wasn't planning on it," he said, somewhat against his will. Anger flares in Piper's eyes as she throws her arms in the air.

"Why not?"

"Ice Queen is my nemesis. She is my problem." Piper spun around and put her hands on her head.

"You've always been soft with her."

"Well she was my friend, how could I not?"

"Why didn't you tell us when you got here?"

"Like I said, my problem." She doesn't turn around.

"I hope you fix it," she says quietly. She leaves the room without another word. Leo kicks the shard of ice into the corner. He turns and continues to type on the computer. While the computer syncs up to the satellite, he opens up his email. He he sees that he has almost over a thousand emails waiting from him. A picture of a dragon head pops up in the corner of the screen. It makes a series of whirs and clicks at him.

"Yeah, yeah. I know I was being childish, but Piper was out of line too." More whirs and clicks come from the computer. "It's just that she hasn't popped up for seven years, even though all of the 'rogues' have. Suddenly she shows up as soon as I get back. She somehow knew I'd be there." The picture of the dragon opens it's mouth and a ball of fire spews out before more whirs and clicks happen. "She said she wanted to talk. Supposedly she sent an email, but I don't see it here." The dragon closes his mouth. No whirs or clicks happen. "Festus, are you screening my emails?" A single click happens. "Festus, bring up her email and let me know when we are linked up to the satellite." The picture of the dragon disappears and just as quickly a single email popped up. The email was a code that the two of them used to use when they were younger.

" _13.10,5:13.1,5,5,4:13.7,13.2:13.7,1,12,13:9,13.7:9,13.6:1,2,13.2,13.8,13.7:13.0,13.12:4,1,4:8,5:13.10,1,13.1,13.7,13.6:13.7,13.2:13.6,5,5:2,13.2,13.7,8:13.2,6:13.8,13,6:13.12,13.2,13.8:11,13.1,13.2,13.10:8,13.2,13.10:13.7,13.2:6,9,13.1.4:13.0,5:13.7,8,5:A,G,13.7,8:ZBCE:5,13.6,13.7_

 _-11"_

He quickly copies the message onto a napkin and puts it in his pocket. While it was a very simple code, it takes some time to crack. He drags the email to the trash and logs out of his email. Festus pops up again and clicks and whirs once again.

"Thanks bud." Leo opens up a drawer and pulls out a microphone. He plugs it in and thinks for a moment about what to say. Once he figures it out, he clicks the enter button on the keyboard.

"Hello beautiful people. This is Leo Valdez, the amazing captain of the Argo. I wish I came back with better news, but it looks like I have to be a hero for you guys again. An unknown group is attacking former Argonauts, and it seems like they know who we really are. So I am initiating a recall. All heroes need to check in. The Argo is a safe haven for us right now. Let us know your location and we can pick you up. Well, I guess I can say this, I'm back."

* * *

 **Next Update: May 12th**

 **Please review, follow, or favorite. To the 6 people who made it this far, take a crack at the message. PM me if you think you have it. If someone does figure it out, they might get to name one of the bad guys.**


	5. Chapter 4

Name: Leo Valdez

Occupation: Deceased (Formerly), Ship Captain, Hero

Alias: Phoenix

Date: December 15 XX24

Chapter 4: Reveal

 _The water fills the command center very quickly. Leo looks around him looking for an exit. The plan was to hit dirt-face into the ocean then get out, but as always, nothing ever goes according to plan. He runs up the stairs to try and get to the deck, but the shutters were closed and was warping quickly. There is no way that he could push it open, and even if he could, he'd get thousands of gallons of water in his face. He thinks for a minute and runs deeper into the ship, aiming to make it to torpedo tubes to get out. He runs down the stairs, past all of the rooms, the science lab, and the armory. The water keeps rising, it was up to his waist now. Suddenly he finds himself at a fork; he could go down a hall that didn't have a lot of water, but did not have an easy exit, or he could go down the hall full of water to a potential exit. Buford displays an arrow to the left, down the hall leading to the med-bay. When he gets in, Buford highlights the healing chamber. He was glad that he lied to Piper that it was broken, if not she would be in this situation too. He chuckles to himself as he gets in. There was no way that he would be in this situation if Piper was in here. The door closes and the pale yellow light turns on. Leo slumps to the ground and reaches into his armor. He pulls out a picture of Calypso and smiles. He had taken this when they were in Rome. They only had one day of shore leave, which was actually supposed to be a supply run, and he took that while she sitting at a coffee shop. He wish he had asked her then, if he had asked her to marry him, would he still be here? He folded it up and put it back into the compartment that it was in. "Buford, sign off. Save some battery, you may need to tell them I'm sorry." The crying emoji popped up before his HUD went dark. Leo closed his eyes and accepted his fate._

Leo wakes up with a start when he feels someone poking his nose. He blinks rapidly, trying to push the fatigue from his body. He looks over and sees Sally with her head cocked to the side looking at him. He sits up straight in his chair and stretches.

"Hey, what's up kid?" He covers his mouth as he yawns and shakes his body.

"Mommy asked me to tell you to sleep in your room." She puts her finger to her chin and looks up. She looks a lot like Annabeth when she does this. "Oh, and Aunt Piper asked me to tell you that when you do wake up, there is food in the kitchen." She scratches your head, and then her eyes go wide. "Oh and Mister Jason said he wants to talk to you." She nods once more. He chuckles.

"Your dad didn't ask you to tell me anything?" Leo asks as she mention every other adult on the ship. She taps her finger on her chin again.

"No, he just told me to brush my teeth even though the toothpaste tastes different than the one at home." She then turns around and runs over to the stairs leading deeper into the ship. "FREDDY, LET'S GO LOOK AT THE WATER!" she shouts before running onto the deck. Freddy runs up the stairs and he is followed by the same small water dog. Leo stands up and shakes his legs to wake them up. He scratches his head and opens up a drawer and pulls out a watch. He taps a few buttons and a holographic display appears.

"Festus set a course for Miami." Festus makes a few clicks and whirs. He sends a message to everybody on the ship, updating them on their next destination. He got an alert from Silena and Beckendorf that they could use some help in Miami. They luckily checked into a hotel a few hours before their house was attacked. Leo had also heard from Magnus. They apparently are in the middle of a war with some organized crime group in the area. If they were to leave, the group would take over and terrorize the people. Leo offered to help, but Magnus didn't want anybody else to get injured in his group's war. He decided to leave it at that. Leo yawns as he starts walking down stairs. He walks down one flight of stairs, walks past all of the rooms, and walks down another flight of stairs into the cafeteria. When he enters, he sees Jason and Piper were both eating breakfast, although they were at separate tables. Percy was standing by the stove cooking pancakes. The cafeteria consisted of eight picnic tables, two stoves, one oven, four microwaves, a large refrigerator, and a large pantry. Percy turns at looks at him as he walks in.

"Hey Valdez, pancake?" Leo nods and grabs a plate as Percy places a small stack of blue pancakes. He raises an eyebrow, but decides not to say anything. When he turns, he realizes that he has a choice; sit with Piper or sit with Jason. He sighs and grabs his own table. Piper still seemed angry at him for not tell her about the Ice Queen, and Jason still seemed conflicted about what to do. On the TV in the room was a news broadcast, reporting the attack on Percy and Annabeth's house, the warehouse in Brooklyn, and the destruction of Piper's apartment. It then cut to a man who looked about his age. He looks at the broadcast title and sees that he was talking about demi-humans.

"So where are these heroes now? There were, what four separate attacks in New York, hours from each other, so where were they? This. This is why they should identify themselves, so that they can actually do some good for this country." He heard Piper snort.

"We were there jackass. Man I hate that guy. This is worse than his broadcast last night," Piper mumbles. He watches as she meets eyes with Jason. She raises an eyebrow at him in a questioning look, as if she was asking if he was going to sit by Leo or if she will. Leo sets his fork on the table.

"Both of you, get over here. We need to talk." Percy glances at the trio. He puts the pan in the sink and slowly walks out of the room, clearly not wanting to be in the awkward situation. Jason and Piper look at each other again, grab their food and walk over to Leo's table.

"What do you want Valdez?" Piper grumbles. He sees that she was eating blueberry pancakes. She had a coffee cup with her and from the look of it, it was some sort of fancy drink that he would have difficulty spelling. Jason had scrambled eggs on his plate, with a cup of orange juice. Leo glances at her to see her reactions.

"Are you still mad about me not telling you about the Ice Que...about Khione?" Jason's eyes go wide, while Piper shows a look of surprise.

"You know her name?" Leo nods. Piper remains silent before sighing. "I can't really stay mad right now." He smiles at this.

"So she's back?" Jason asks.

"She was in the helicopter." Jason sits in silence. "And she sent me a message." they both look right at him.

"A message?" they ask at the same time. They look at each other again. Leo pulls out the napkin and shows it to the both of them.

"Valdez, this is just a bunch of number," Piper says in a confused voice.

"It's obvious some sort of code, but how do you know the code?" Jason asks Leo.

"I know the code because she and I made it when we were kids. It's pretty simple actually. It's a number-letter association, 1 is A, 2 is B and so forth. If the number if the number is 13, you add the number after the decimal point to the 13 and get the number that way." The duo seems to take this in.

"When you were kids?" Piper asks.

"You remember that I didn't always live in LA, I moved from Lake Tahoe when I was eight. I've known the Frost family since I was born. There were four kids in that family, two boys and two girls. Zethes and Calais are almost ten years older than me, so I didn't really hang out with them. I mostly hung out with the twins. They were named Khione and Winter. Even after my mom and I moved to LA, we still went back to Tahoe every winter."

"Apparently that family likes snow," Jason states. Leo and Piper look at him weird. "Well he's named after the Greek god of winter and his kids are the same as that guy's kids."

"You said were…" Piper trails off.

"It all started when we found out we have powers. I was ten when mine first showed up. Khione got her's apparently when she got lost in a snow storm, they sort of just turned on and she didn't get hypothermia. Winter was her twin…"

"Oh no," Jason said realizing where this story was going.

"Khione and her both went out in the middle of a snow storm, assuming it would awaken Winter's powers… Khione let her twin die. She told me before she ran away from home. That's when she became the Ice Queen." A silence falls on the group.

"What did she say in her message?"

"Her dad wants to see me. She wants to talk in person in two days."

"Wait, how would he know you are alive? None of us knew you were alive," Piper said.

"He wouldn't know unless," Jason starts to say.

"He is a Demi-human. An ESPer. He know where anybody that he cares about is, as long as they are conscious."

"Are you going to go?" Before Leo could answer, an alarm blared through the ship. A flashing orange light appeared in the cafeteria area.

"Orange, that means someone warped onto the ship." Orange lines appeared on the ground. The trio nods at each other. Piper, who apparently comes armed to breakfast, pulls out one of her pistol crossbows. Jason reaches under the table in the center of the room and pulls out a nine millimeter pistol and its ammo clip. He loads it and pulls the slide back.

He points at it with his other hand and says, "We really should not have this here anymore. What were we thinking back then?" The trio then run along the ship following the lines to the medbay. When they get there, they see that the door was closed and Percy was standing with his shield. He nods at them and crouches, preparing to give the team more cover. They all stack up on the door. Percy presses the button on the wall and the door slides open. Leo ignites his hand and rounds the corner. He sees a human-sized shadow figure with red glowing eyes. It raises its hands straight in the air.

"Wait," it says in a distorted, gravelly voice. The figure then starts coughing hard, the red eyes closing. As it coughs, the shadows seem to flow away from it and when the eyes open again, they are glowing green. One last wheezing cough makes all the shadows dissipate, revealing a man with olive colored skin dressed all in black, and a small asian girl. The man's eyes stopped glowing, revealing normal onyx eyes. Jason and Piper both lower their firearms and Leo extinguishes his hand and presses a button on his watch, turning off the alarm. Percy stands up and his shield collapses into his left gauntlet.

"Nico?" Percy asks with a very confused voice. Nico opens his mouth to talk before going into another fit of coughs. The little girl reaches into her backpack and pulls out a water bottle with a chinese label on it. He takes it and downs the entire bottle. Nico turns and looks at the little girl.

"Xie Xie," he says patting her head. He turns to look at the rest of the group. "It has been a long time since I've touched the Void, it kinda took over for a bit." Jason walks up and opens his arms out for a hug.

"Well, it's good to see you." Nico gives him a hug before looking at the rest of the group.

"Good to see you too, I just wish it was under better circumstances."

"Who's that?" Leo asks, pointing at the little girl. Nico scratches his head and puts his hand on the little girl's shoulder.

"This is Mei...my daughter." He crouches down and makes his thinking face. "Uh. ZheXie….dou shi...um, baba de...Pengyou?" he says in a not very confident voice. The little girl seemed a bit confused before realizing what he was saying. She turns to the rest of them before bowing.

"You speak chinese?" Jason asks. Nico scratches the back of his head.

"Not nearly as well as I should, especially because I've lived there for three years now. Luckily Will speaks it fluently." As if saying his name summoned him, a bright white flash happens and a blonde man with tan skin appears. He appears with a big smile on his face as he takes in the sight of the medbay. The orange lights go off a few times before Leo turns them off again.

"It is good to see that nothing has changed, everything is exactly where I left it," When he walks in, Mei runs over to Will and they begin to converse in Mandarin with each other. Nico starts to wobble on his feet before he collapses. Will, while still talking with Mei, catches him and puts him on one of the cots in the room. Will gestures with his head towards the rest of the group, who was just watching this scene happen. Mei turns towards the group.

"Hello. Nice meet you," she says in a somewhat broken English. Annabeth and the two kids come in from the door.

"I found the party. Hey Will nice to see you."

"Hey Annabeth. Nico is taking a nap. I told him that I could bring Mei so he won't be so tired, but you know how stubborn he is." Nico made a bunch of unintelligible grumbles in his sleep.

"It probably doesn't help that it's night in China right now," Leo says turning his attention back to his watch. "I guess it's a good thing you are here now. We could use your combat medic skill." The adults nod at this. Percy, Jason, Freddy, and Piper then leave the room. Annabeth and Will start to talk in the corner and Sally walks up to Mei and starts to talk to her. Leo could see that Mei was getting confused at Sally's quick talking. Suddenly Sally switches from English to Mandarin. Leo swears that her eyes get the lines like Annabeth does, but as soon as she blinks, they disappear. He turns to Annabeth and Will who seem to be reading something. He turns to walk away when he hears Will clear her throat.

"Are you finally going to get some sleep Mr. Valdez?" he hears Will ask without even raising his head from the tablet.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"You did not get any sleep last night."

"I did go to sleep, ask Sally." Annabeth looks at her daughter who turns at the mention of her name. "Wasn't I sleeping earlier?" She taps her finger to her chin and looks up.

"Yeah, you were asleep for not long when I woke you up." Annabeth turns to Leo and raises an eyebrow, practically saying 'I told you so'. "So when are we going to My-am-eye?"

"Do you mean Miami?" Annabeth asks.

"Yeah, when are we going?"

"We are heading there, wait how did you know we were going to Miami?"

"The funny dragon told me, " she says rocking back and forth on her feet.

"You understand Festus? I don't even understand him," Annabeth says in disbelief. Festus pops up on one of the computers in the medbay. Festus starts to whir and click and strangely, Sally responded to him in whirs and clicks. Annabeth's eyes go wide at this. She crouches down and puts both of her hands on Sally's shoulders. "Sally, what did you just say?" Sally tilts her head.

"You didn't understand? I just said Hi."

"I don't speak Festus."

"Speak Festus? I was just talking normal." Annabeth's mouth hangs open as Sally continues to look confused.

"Um, we can talk about this later. We must be getting close to Miami. Festus how much longer?" The dragon whirs and clicks.

"Two hours," he and Sally say at the same time. Annabeth nods.

"Valdez, will you be good to go?" Leo salutes at her and she sighs. "Go let everybody know what's happening." Leo nods and heads out. He taps a button on his watch and it displays everybody's location on the ship. Piper and Jason are in their respective rooms, and Percy was in the command center. He climbs up the stairs and walks over to Piper's room. He knocks on the door and he hears her shuffle her way to the door. She opens the door and leans on it.

"What's up?" she asks.

"We are getting close to Miami, you ready?" She shrugs.

"As ready as I'll ever be." She grabs one of her repeating crossbows and puts it in the back of her jeans, pulling her shirt over it to cover it.

"You don't need to do that. We are suiting up." She shakes her head in disbelief.

"Valdez, if we do we will be arrested and outed." He smirks at her.

"Well it's a good thing that there is some big convention going on. A comic convention." She starts to nod slowly.

"If everybody is dressed as superheros, we won't stand out for looking like heros. They will just think we are cosplaying. I like it." She pulls the crossbow out of her pants and starts to head to the armory. He looks into her room and sees that it was pretty empty. This makes sense since she used to live with Jason and all his stuff was gone, but it still seemed sad. He looks and sees a picture frame was face down on the night stand. He walks over, checking the hallway to make sure Piper was gone. He picks it up and sees that it was a picture of Piper and Jason kissing at sunset on Santa Monica Pier. This was taken the day that Jason proposed. He looks at it before putting it back on the nightstand. He felt his hand subconsciously go to his wallet to look at his picture of Calypso. When he sent the message early this morning only about a third of the Argonauts responded, she was not one of them. Of course he was worried about the number of people who responded, but she was still the one on his mind. He still tries to stay positive but every minute with no response from her makes him worry more. He shakes it off and heads over to the room that Jason was in. Jason's door wasn't even closed when Leo walks up. Jason sits on his bed on his phone. His wind lance was propped up against his desk across from him. Like Piper's room, his room seemed bare compared to how their room was before, but his was absolutely empty. On the desk were two boxes full of clothes and other stuff. Leo knocks on the door frame to get Jason's attention.

"Huh? Oh hey Valdez, what's up?" he asks standing up. He moves his lance and gestures for Leo to sit down at the chair. Leo sits and looks at him.

"Are you okay?" he asks Jason. Jason takes a deep breath.

"I am just letting my dad know what's happening. Well not all of it. Letting him know that I will be gone for an indefinite amount of time. They are going to need someone to do my job." Leo feels a bit annoyed.

"Are seriously thinking about work right now?"

"I need to do something to take my mind off of things. Plus there are countless people who would lose their jobs if someone doesn't do mine." Leo sighs and leans back.

"We are getting close to Miami, are you and Piper going to be good?" Jason's face hardens.

"I don't know. I'm still not comfortable around her."

"What do you mean?" Leo asks confused.

"Well, she's a criminal. I don't feel comfortable working with a criminal."

"She's still the same Piper as before," Leo says standing up.

"That Piper is a criminal," Jason says standing up as well. The two look each other in the eye and glare at each other.

"Mister Leo? Mister Jason?" Leo turns to look at Sally and Freddy who were poking their heads in the doorway.

"What is it Sally?" Leo asks.

"Daddy wants to talk to you. He's in the room with all the stuff. The armory."

"Armory," Freddy echoed. Leo nods and the two kids run down the hallway. He turns back to Jason.

"You should stay on the ship. Don't bother getting off at Miami." Jason says nothing and just glares at him. Leo walks out of the room and starts to make his way back towards the armory. As he walks down the hallway, he notices a notch in the wall by the stairs. Suddenly the the stairway was full of water. He stumbles forwards and falls in the water, but instead of the slowing down in the waters, he falls straight through. He breaks his fall with his left hand and pain shoots through it. The water was gone. He touches the ground where the water was and it was dry as a bone. _I must need some sleep_ , he thinks to himself. He shakes it off and continues walking to the armory. When he gets there, he sees Piper and Percy with their uniforms on. Annabeth, still wearing the same blouse and jeans as earlier, stands by her locker conversing with Percy.

"I can't go, we all can't go out there. What if something happens here?" Annabeth says. Percy looks up and his brow furrows at the sight of just Leo.

"Where's Jason?" Percy asks.

"He's taking this one off," Leo replies. He opens his locker up and grabs his rocket rifle, a few spare clips, and his stun grenades. He props them up against the wall and opens up a tube. After he puts all of the equipment into the tube, he types in a few numbers and the equipment is sent up to where his Phoenix suit. Because his suit was an exoskeleton rather than clothes like most of the other heroes, his suit had to be put in a different location to make sure he doesn't take up too much space in the armory. He feels a hand on his shoulder. He turns and sees Annabeth with a concerned look on her face.

"Are you okay?" she asks him.

"Just peachy. Why?" Leo fully turns and sees that Piper and Percy also have concerned looks on their face.

"Well, your eyes are barely open, you have a red mark on your hand, and there are holes in the back of your shirt. You need sleep." Leo reaches behind him and feels that there were small holes in the back of his shirt. It was most likely a series of small fires from when he was talking to Jason. He looks at both of his hands and sees that his left hand was looking slightly more red than it usually does. It must have happened when he fell down in the hallway. He knows that it will likely bruise in a few days.

"I'm fine." The others don't say anything. "Meet me in the command center." He turns and walks up the stairs again. He quickly makes a detour to the kitchen and grabs a coffee cup, fills it up, then downs it. The bitter taste spread across his taste buds. He cringes at the taste and grabs one of the bottles of apple juice and pours himself a cup. He downs it and heads up to where his armor was. The room was basically a supply closet that he converted into an armor room, with a tube that connects it to the armory. He steps into his armor, ignites himself to turn it on, puts his rifle on his back, clips the grenades to his belt, and puts the spare ammo into a pouch on his leg. With his armor on, he heads to the command center. When he gets there, everybody except for Nico was there. Jason was sitting at a computer, Piper and Percy were standing at the hologram table, Annabeth was pacing back and forth with a headset on, and Will was watching the kids run around.

"Uh huh, are you guys going to be good there?" Annabeth says continuing to pace back and forth. "We don't know when we will be able to make it to Alaska...Seems like a lot of people are headed to Galveston...Yes that is a real place...It's in Texas...I don't care if you hate Texans...We will probably be there in a couple of days...if there is more of you working together in one location...Okay...Okay...Alright, Minerva out." She taps a button on the headset before taking it off. "That was Zoe, Ethan, Michael Varus. They will be making their way to Galveston." Jason taps a few more time before spinning in his chair.

"Just heard from Michael Yew, Bianca, and Lee. They are also on their way to Galveston."

"Why are they heading to Galveston?" Percy asks.

"A lot of Argonauts are already in Texas. Reyna, Rachel, Nyssa, and Hurley live in Austin. Frank and Hazel went on some business trip in Dallas. Grover and Juniper are doing some environmental work in San Antonio, and Hedge and Melody live near Galveston."

"So why Galveston?"

"It's an island near the coast of the East side of Texas. It gives us a place to bring the boat since the jump jet is offline." Leo nods. Festus pops up on the holographic table, as a full holographic dragon, and started to "Speak." Sally stops running, resulting in Mei and Freddy to crash into her.

"We're here?" she asks. She suddenly bolts straight up to the upper deck. Percy smirks and follows her up. Leo and Piper follow him.

"I'll be your eyes and ears. Channel 24," Leo hears Annabeth cry out. When they get topside, Leo sees that they were about a mile away from the beach.

"Why are we so far away daddy?" Sally asks turning to her father. Percy pats her on the head.

"We don't want people to see us kiddo. It's kinda hard to explain why a big bronze ship is landing on the beach." She hops up and down, clearly wanting to get off the boat. "Sorry sweetie. You have to stay here with mommy." Sally looks sad before she crosses her arms and walks back downstairs. Percy turns towards the duo and asks, "Are you ready?" Piper and Leo nod. Percy then jumps off the edge of the ship into the ocean below. Piper and Leo run over to the edge and see him floating on the surface of the sea.

"What are you doing?" Piper asks.

"Hop in," Percy says waving them in. Leo felt his body start to panic. His heart rate started to increase, and felt his breathing increase. He blinks hard.

"No way," he heard Piper say. "Do you know how uncomfortable it is to get wet in leather?" Leo wished that he could make a joke, but his voice was getting stuck in his voice. He wanted to look away from the ocean but he couldn't.

"I'm not going to make a comment on that."

"I...That's not what I meant Jackson." Leo closed his eyes and tried to take some deep breaths. He was glad that he was wearing a helmet that covers most of face.

"Well how are you going to get there?" Leo felt his heart rate go normal. He opens his eyes and turns away from the ocean.

"I'll carry her. Plus you know how fire and water tend not to work well together." Percy shrugs and then shoots off towards the beach. Leo holds his arms out. Piper jumps up into his arms and then they fly off towards the beach. Leo has never been to Miami, but it definitely was not what he expected. For some reason, he was expecting to see men and women in swimsuits, doing beach stuff. He was not expecting for most everybody to be in costumes. He should have expected this, seeing as it is a comic book convention near the beach, but still. He and Piper scan the area and spot Percy posing for a picture with some teenage boy on the convention floor. Piper and Leo pay the entrance fee. Piper then walks up and smacks him on the back of his head.

"Ow, come on. He just wanted a picture. Apparently, I look exactly like Ocean Master. Except older." Piper raises her eyebrow at this.

"You are older than he was." Percy shrugs and turns back to the teenager, who was clearly fanboying at their costumes.

"Dude, your Phoenix suit is so awesome. How long did it take you to make it?" Leo smiles at this comment.

"It took almost two years."

"And you, your Nevermore costume is almost perfect."

"Almost?" Piper asks.

"Yeah, you just forgot the whip." She makes a confused face.

"What whip?"

"You know the one she uses on her victims. Hey can I get a picture with you?" Piper half nods, still confused at his comment. He puts her arm around her and takes a selfie. Leo then has an idea.

"Hey kid."

"Darrin," he says looking at his picture with Piper.

"You've been around the convention right?" He nods. "We are looking for our friends. Have you seen anybody wearing a Starlet or Technician costume?" Darrin looks up.

"No I don't think so. I've seen people dressed as Legion, Shade, and Lawbringer." Leo goes through the list in his head. He knows that Reyna was still in Austin and Annabeth said that Zoe and Ethan were in Alaska.

"If you see them can you give us a call?"

"Sure." Darrin turns towards Piper. "Can I get your number? Maybe we can get a coffee later." Piper chuckles

"I'll give you the number, but I'm pretty sure that my fiancee would get mad. Wouldn't you?" Piper asks looking at Percy. Percy shrugs. Darrin's eyes go wide. She grabs his pen and writes a number down on his notebook.

"Um. I'm sorry sir. I'll call if I see them. Sorry again." He turns around and rushes away.

"That was a bit mean Piper," Percy says.

"At least we have another set of eyes."

"That you don't need," Leo hears over his earpiece. "Silena and Beckendorf are right behind you." Leo turns around and just sees a crowd of people. A waving hand gets his attention. He looks and sees a couple dressed in costume. The woman, the one waving, was dressed as a witch, while the man was dressed as a fantasy soldier.

"There you three are." SIlena hugs both Piper and Leo, and Beckendorf shake hands.

"You aren't dressed as Starlet and Technician," Leo states. Silena giggles.

"Well someone is looking for us, we couldn't just paint a big target on ourselves." She twirls around. "Plus, I've always wanted to be a witch," she says tilting her witch's hat." Beckendorf pulls out his phone and looks around.

"They are closing in. We need to hurry." They all leave the convention floor. Silena and Beckendorf's hotel was luckily within walking distance. Leo and Percy stay in the lobby as Piper follow the couple to their rooms. Leo and Percy wait for about twenty minutes before they come back down with their luggages. Silena and Beckendorf changed out of their costumes and wore civilian clothes. "We have a boat down at the marina. Since Leo's here I assume that the Argo is here." Leo nods. "I'll let Annabeth know as Sil checks out." Leo walks outside and starts to scan the area. Beckendorf came straight out before the others. "We've got a problem. I can't get Annabeth on my comms. Neither can Percy or Piper."

"What?" Leo asks as he taps the side of his helmet. Static sounds play instead of the standard Argo call waiting, Staying Alive by the Bee Gees. "Buford, what's going on?" The emoji of shrugging man pops up. Percy and the girls come out of the lobby.

"Let's go, where is this marina?"

"Down the street, near the beach you guys landed on." She gestures that way and they started to make their way towards it. They must have been a strange sight, three people dressed in costumes escorting two people who have their luggage. They make it onto the pier when someone calls out to them.

"'Scuse me," Leo hears behind him. He turns and sees a cowboy. The man was wearing a tan cowboy hat, a red flannel shirt, worn down blue jeans, a large belt buckle that had a skull, gardening gloves, and cowboy boots with spurs. On his belt was a holster with a revolver, and a bunch of bullets. On his back was what looked like a small cowboy rifle. "I was wunderin if y'all could help me."

"We're busy," Piper said quickly. He takes off his hat and puts it to his chest.

"Where are my manners? My mama woulda smacked me if she were here. Name's Oscar. Oscar Rion. Please, I'm looking for someone."

"Who are you looking for?" Selena asks. He puts his hat back on his head and puts his thumbs in his front pockets.

"Well howdy missy, you're a beauty. What's your name darlin?" Beckendorf put his arm around her protectively.

"Silena." Oscar raised an eyebrow.

"Silena? You wouldn't be Miss Beauregard would you?"

"Beckendorf. Why are you asking." Oscar smiles.

"Ah. You know, you are much more pretty in person Miss Beauregard." He sighs and looks down. "I hate doin this to the pretty one." He looks up and his right eye seemed to flash red. "Pistols at high noon." He takes his hands out of his pocket and put them at his side. Leo realizes what he's doing and ignites his hand. Everything happens almost instantaneously after Oscar says, "Draw." Oscar draws his revolver from its holster and fans the hammer. The first two bullet connects with Beckendorf's back as he tries to cover Silena with his body. The third hits Silena on the right side of her chest, threading the needle between Beckendorf's body. The fourth hits Beckendof in the back of the head, killing him almost instantly. The fifth and sixth bullets strayed way off from the couple and they embed themselves into Piper's hand crossbows, with one grazing Piper's left hand. It happened so fast that Leo hadn't even thrown the fireball yet. His anger starts to rise. He throws the fireball at Oscar, who leans to the right as the fireball sails right by him. Leo turns on is jetpack to close the distance between him. His right fist gets engulfed in flames. He starts swinging at him, but his opponent dodges with ease. Oscar grabs his cowboy rifle and fires at Leo's left leg. Suddenly his left leg stops working and his left arm seems to be less responsive. The diagram of the suit pops up with the left leg highlighted red and the left arm highlighted yellow. Leo swings his right fist with a back hand and as soon as his hand passes, Oscar fires his rifles at his right shoulder. His whole suit freezes and he falls backwards onto the ground, unable to move. His helmet went loose and lets him partially see the scene in front of him, as the visor went dark. He got glimpses of Piper using her dagger and Percy using his sword to fight Oscar, who was using his rifle to block their attacks. Oscar was switching between blocking with the rifle and shooting at Piper and Percy, the bullets grazing them. Oscar then breaks Piper's guard, then hits her with the butt of his rifle. She stumbles out of view, and Leo hears a splash.

"Piper!" Percy calls out to her before Leo hears Oscar fire his rifle twice and another splash. Leo hears footsteps come up to him and his helmet gets knocked off of his head. It takes him a few seconds for his eyes to adjust to the bright light, but when he does he sees the barrel of a revolver. Leo feels the panic and fear start to crawl into his mind. He flinches hard as Oscar pulls the trigger and it just clicks.

"Don't worry. I ain't gettin paid to kill you." He puts the revolver back into its holster and reaches into his pocket. He pulls out about a dozen black business cards. He pulls two out and puts the rest back into his pocket. He walks past Leo then comes back and crouches down in front of him. "You're gonna need your pal to pry those off of ya. My employer gave me those bullets to injure and disable y'all." Oscar stands up and starts to walk away.

"Who the hell are you?" Leo says angrily.

"Ah, ya wanna know my code name. See I'm just like ya. I'm the people's hero. Orion. Get it? Like that fancy hunter guy from them mythologies, but it's my initials." He tips his hat at Leo, who is still struggling to move his suit. "Well I'd love to stay and chat, but the boss is waitin for me." Leo hears a boat pulls up on his right and Orion gets in. The boat drives off and Leo remains trapped. Another splash happens on his left followed by someone struggling with something. He turns and sees Percy carrying Piper out of the ocean. Percy places her on the ground the next to Leo. Percy then rushes over to Leo trying to find a way to pull the suit off.

"That bastard said that the bullets are what's stopping my suit. Pry the one off my shoulder." Percy nods and grabs Piper's dagger. He uses it to pry the bullet off, and Leo feels the power course through his suit. He sits up and looks at his left leg and uses the suit's finger to pull the bullet off. Percy then turns to Piper and starts to draw the water out of her. She starts coughing before she passes out. He opens a compartment on is suit and plops the bullet on it. He grabs his helmet and puts it back on. Buford pops up and displays an empty battery. Leo scowls and pops out of the suit. He puts his hands on his head, thinking about how this happened. A gasping sound behind him stops his train of thought. He turns and rushes over to Silena who was still alive somehow. She was covered in blood, Beckendorf's body slumped over her. She seems to be struggling for breath. "Hey, Sil. Stay with me. Stay with me." She raises her hand and Leo takes it. He opens his hand and sees a key in it. She looks into his eyes with a long look in her eyes.

"The Pandora...d..dock three," she struggles to say.

"Save your breath okay? We will get you help."

"Cal...she..she…" Her arm goes limp. Leo closes his eyes to stop the tears from falling. He opens them and sees the two black business cards that Orion had earlier. He looks at them and sees that they had both of their pictures on them, along with their superhero names. Leo feels a hand on his shoulder and he turns. He sees Percy carrying Piper.

"We need to go."

"But…" Leo says turning back towards Silena and Beckendorf.

"Right now, the way that things are. We would be arrested. I wish we could, but we can't." Leo nods, tears still flowing down his face. He stands and steps into his suit.

"Dock three." Percy nods and starts walking towards the boat. Leo steps into his suit and follows him, taking one last look at the couple behind him. With his low battery, most of the suit's functions were deactivated. This was evident by his rocket rifle falling to the ground. He reaches down and picks it up, somewhat wishing that he didn't bring it with him. He brought it in his tired state out of habit, as he used it in most of the battles in Greece. When he gets to dock three, he sees Percy untying a speed boat from the docks. Percy waves him on as Leo slowly walks up. He swallows hard as he steps onto the boat. The boat shifts a bit, but it holds the weight of his suit. Although it was somewhat bulky, the suit itself only weighed about forty pounds. Leo sits in a seat on the back next to the unconscious Piper. Percy detaches them from the dock and they start to head back to the Argo. Leo taps the side of his helmet and he still hears static, but a voice started to cut through.

"...me? He…..lly, turn the….ial. Thanks sweetie. Hello? Does anybody read me?" he hears Annabeth say.

"Annabeth?" he asks, his voice very weak.

"Oh thank the gods. I was worried that the antenna was badly damaged. What's your status?" Leo looks at Piper and Percy.

"Mission fail."

"Oh no. You mean…"

"Yeah. They are gone." There is a moment of silence between the two. Leo hears a popping sound from Annabeth's side of the line. "What is happening?" He hears a lot of shuffling around.

"Son of a… um fish. We were attacked right after you left." Percy's hand shoots up to his ear.

"What, are you guys okay?" Percy asks in a panicked tone.

"We're fine, I got all the kids into the medbay. Jason, Nico, and I were able to fend them off, but the ship took a lot of damage. We are a few miles away from where you guys left, but we are stranded here until you guys get back. The engine, ballista, and the Aegis shield are down."

"Great, more things for the ever growing to do list," Leo mumbles to himself.

"We are on route. Be advised, Piper is unconscious. We'll bring her straight to the medbay."

"Understood. Sending the location to your comms Percy." Percy pulls out his communication device and glances at it.

"Got it."

"Get home safe you guys." With that, the line shut. In his ear, Leo heard the standard Argonaut waiting song, Staying Alive.

* * *

 **Next Update: June 2**

 **Just going to reply to some comments.**

 **ElaAnnieGrace: The Incredibles was part of what inspired this.**

 **JaxiusTharn: Overwatch was another thing that inspired this. I hadn't seen Watchmen before you commented, but it does somewhat fit into that. The other thing that inspired this story was a series of books called the Quantum Prophecy by Michael Carroll.**


	6. Chapter 5

Name: Leo Valdez

Occupation: Deceased (Formerly), Ship Captain, Hero

Alias: Phoenix

Date: December 17 XX24

Chapter 5: Reunion

"Are you sure you've got the location?" Leo asks Festus for the third time. The AI unit growls at him, as if he was offended that he was being questioned. Leo backs up and taps on his wrist watch. A map of Key Largo projects holographically from the watch. He taps the watch again and the projection turns off. He reaches downs and grabs his backpack and puts it on his back. Not much was in the backpack; a flashlight, a hammer, a few bags of chips, duct tape, and a sweater. He begins to walk down the stairs from the command center.

"Going somewhere?" Leo heard a voice behind him say. He turns and sees Jason leaning against the wall. "It's pretty late to be walking around the halls." Jason pushes off of it and walks towards Leo, his wind lance in his hand and a small back on his back.

"Are you going to use your lance to keep me on the ship?" he asks gestures towards the weapon. Jason sighs and leans on it.

"No, I'm not going to use this to keep you on the ship."

"Good, that would make a lot of noise, and I wouldn't want to make Annabeth cranky." Leo then finally takes in Jason's appearance, he was wearing his Ventus suit. "Are you going somewhere dressed like that?"

"Yeah, I'm going to Key Largo." Leo's eyes go wide.

"How did you?"

"You must really be exhausted if you didn't notice me watching you in the command center." Jason adjusts his collar. "I'm going with you Valdez." Leo starts to laugh.

"You know I didn't know that you were funny," Leo says as he turns towards the hallway.

"I'm not kidding. I am going with you."

"No."

"Leo," Jason says as he puts his hand on Leo's shoulder, turning him towards him. "Look, I'm worried about you. We all are. I just want to make sure you're safe."

"I'll be fine. She won't hurt me," Leo says in a quiet voice.

"Your judgement with her has never been the best. Come on Valdez, we just got you back."

"I thought you didn't want anything to do with this business." Jason sighs.

"I was confused. We used to be the good guys, then we were told that we were bad guys. Now even worse guys are coming after us. I was honestly just wondering if we really did any good back then."

"We saved millions of people."

"We also hurt millions." Leo sighs.

"Look, I don't have time for this, let's go." He shakes his head and starts making his way towards the Pandora. The two of them round the corner and that's when they run into Piper, who was leaning against the boat waiting for them.

"You boys going somewhere?" she asks, her eyebrow raised. She was wearing her Nevermore suit and had a small duffle bag next to her.

"Yes, I assume you are coming too?" Piper doesn't answer, other than throwing her bag into the boat and climbing in. Leo pulls off his backpack and sets it on one of the seats in the boat. "You two will get along on this boat ride right? It's bad enough being the seventh wheel, but being the third wheel of an argument would be terrible." Jason and Piper share a look.

"We will be fine," Jason says not looking away from Piper.

"Yes. We will play nice," she says still staring at Jason.

"Great, I totally believe you. You're driving Beauty Queen. We are going to Key Largo." Leo talks a deep breath before taking a step in. The splashing sounds of the water echoed in his ears. He feels his throat closing in on itself as he sits in the back of the boat. He closes his eyes and starts to feel a bit better. Jason gets into the boat and sits in the front of the boat next to Piper.

"Where in Key Largo?" Piper asks. Leo opens his eyes and grabs at his wrist to take off his watch and throws it towards Piper. She catches it and taps on the watch face and the same holographic map that he saw earlier popped up. She nods to herself and turns back to Leo with a concerned look. "You okay?"

He nods slightly and says, "Yeah, just a bit tired. I'm gonna take a nap, wake me when we get there." With that he closes his eyes. Choosing to go to sleep was a double edged sword; he won't be having a freak out with Piper and Jason around, but it likely means that he was going to have another nightmare. Since he woke up from his "long nap" he has had nightmares every time he went to sleep, this lead to him not sleeping the past few nights. The rhythmic sounds of the boat leaving the Argo helped him go to sleep.

* * *

 _Leo looks around the deck of the Argo, the way it was before the battle of Athens. He sees Calypso sitting at the captain's chair looking at one of the computer monitors in front of her. He walks up besides her and kisses the top of her head. She looks up at him and smiles._

 _"What are you still doing up?" she asks him, leaning her head against him._

 _"Well, my beautiful girlfriend went missing on me. I couldn't sleep without her." He sits on one of the arm rests and just stares at her._

 _"What?" she asks laughing. He smiles at her._

 _"Nothing. I love you, you know that right?" The smile fades from her face._

 _"Then why did you leave me?"_

 _"What do you-"_

 _"You abandoned me!" Her face morphed into Piper's face. "How could you?! I lost everything because of you!" Piper's face morphed into Percy's face. "I trusted you! The world trusted you." Jason's face made an appearance. "You just had to be the hero! Didn't you! You ruined everything!" Then Silena's face "I shouldn't have died…" She stood up and she was wearing the clothes that she was wearing when she was killed by Orion, still covered in blood. Leo winces as he feels something hit his chest, he looks down and sees a blade made of ice where his heart is. "You should be here with us," Silena says, blood falling out of her mouth as she says this. She reaches out and touches his face._

* * *

Leo wakes up with a start, he could feel the sweat on his body despite it being very cold out. His heart is pounding in his chest like a loud bass drum. He keeps his eyes closed to prevent a full freak out, but who knows what he did during his nightmare. He starts to get control of his breathing, and he realizes that the boat was slowing down. As the engine got quieter, Leo hears a hushed conversation between Jason and Piper.

"How many times do you want me to tell you? I made a mistake. I'm sorry," Jason tells her.

"It's not that simple Jason. You hurt me, you hurt your own sister. You threatened to arrest her," Piper says in a sharp tone.

"I was doing it to protect you. Both of you."

"It didn't you helped cement the fact that I lost everything. I lost my family, I lost Songbird, and I lost you." There was a silent moment between the two. " Wake up Valdez, we are close." Leo hears a shuffle around the boat and feels Jason touch his shoulder.

"Hey, we are in Key Largo." Leo opens his eyes and looks at Jason who has a defeated look on his face. Before he could ask him about it Piper speaks up from the front.

"Valdez, which dock are we heading to?" Leo stands up and moves towards the front, careful not to look at the water too much as he does.

"No idea. I just feel like…" he trails off. He sees a figure wearing a white dress sitting on the edge of the dock. The water around that single dock was frozen over, and it appeared to be snowing slightly. "I think it's that one," he says pointing at the frozen dock.

"No shit," she says turning the boat towards it.

"You asked." As they got closer to the dock, the figure became much clearer. Khione was wearing a white sundress with a large sunhat on her head. Her bare feet was touching the ice, most likely causing the ice. She had strapped sandals next to her on the dock, next to a large shopping bag. As the Pandora approached the ice, the ice retreated until the boat touched the dock. Jason grabs a rope and floats over to the dock, pulling and tying it to the dock. Leo grabs his backpack and jumps off the boat as quickly as he can. Khione stands up and smiles at him.

"You actually came," she says in disbelief. She glances at Piper and Jason, who of which had their hands on their respective weapons. "And you brought friends." She reaches her hand out to shake Jason's. He takes a step back and moves his lance into a defencive stance. She pulled her hand back and says, "Hi, I'm-"

"We know who you are Ice Queen," Piper cuts her off. Both of her crossbows were out of the holsters and at her side right now.

"Right." Khione turns towards Leo.

"I didn't have a choice, they sort of just came with me," he tells her.

"Right, well I should formally introduce myself nonetheless. I am Khione Frost," she says to Piper and Jason.

"Jason, Piper," Piper says pointing at Jason and herself.

"Do you guys have normal clothes with you? Because you will definitely stand out where we are going." Jason and Piper look at each other before they both lower their weapons and nod slightly. "Great, this is for you Leo," She reaches behind her and hand Leo the shopping bag that he saw earlier. He looks into it and sees a red button up shirt, black jeans, and a light blue tie.

"Why did you…" he starts to ask before he takes in his appearance. He was currently wearing a faded orange T-shirt that had some burn holes, and an old pair of jeans that was covered in grease stains. "Nevermind." He looks up and sees a bathroom and heads over to it. He sheds his clothes and puts on the fancier clothes. He rolled up the sleeves to his elbow, unbuttons the top button and loosens the tie to the opening of the shirt. He leaves the shirt untucked and puts his sneakers back on. He throws his clothes into his backpack and steps out of the bathroom stall. He sees Jason in front of the mirror wearing a similar outfit to what he first saw him in, the only difference being that he was wearing a light green button up shirt underneath. His lance was propped against the wall, and his uniform was stuffed into the backpack that he brought.

"Well you look fancy," Leo says to Jason. He sees Jason turn to look at him.

"Thanks, but am I overdressed?" Leo studies him a bit more.

"Nah, it fits you." Jason looks relieved for a second before getting a confused look on his face.

"Wait, what the hell does that mean?" Leo laughs as he walks out of the bathroom. He sees Khione was sitting on a chair made entirely of ice, while Piper was sitting on the ground drinking out of a flask. Piper is wearing a gray tank top with a black, short-sleeve leather jacket on top of it, black skinny jeans, and black boots. The duffle bag that she had earlier was next to her, with her uniform in it Leo assumes. He noticed that Khione and Piper were not talking to each other and that they were facing away from each other.

"We ready to go?" Leo asks. The girls nod as Jason exits the bathroom. Piper brushes the dirt off of her pants as she stands up, and the ice chair that Khione was sitting on melts. "So where is your dad?" Leo asks. Khione starts walking down a path.

"Tampa," she says without looking back.

"Tampa!? That's like a four hour drive from here!" Piper says angrily.

"Four hours by car, only one by helicopter." Piper looks at Leo in disbelief.

"We are going there by helicopter," Jason says mirroring Piper's tone.

"It was not mine or my papa's choice. We needed to go there for a reason, he just hasn't told me yet," Khione says as they approach a helicopter. It was a helicopter that could easily seat six people in it. Leo recognizes it as the same helicopter that Khione was riding in when he saw her in New York. She takes off her hat and opens the door to the back. She walks around to the front. "One of you can sit up here if you want or you can all sit in the back." She hops up and puts on one of the headsets. Leo looks at Piper and Jason and gives them a look, asking them what they think they should do. Piper rolls her eyes and nods towards the door, while extending her arm. Leo hands her the backpack and hops into the passenger seat next to Khione. He puts on his headset and looks back at Piper and Jason. The two are sitting next to each other with the bags in the seat across from them. "Everybody buckled up?" He hears Khione over the headset. He gives a thumbs up.

"We're good back here," Jason says over the radio. With that, the chopper took off towards Tampa. Most of the trip was done in silence, the best that Leo could come up with is that Jason and Piper went to sleep. They left the Argo at two in the morning, and by the time they made it to Tampa it was six. It was still dark as they landed on the roof of the hospital. "We here?" Leo hears a groggy Jason ask. Leo takes off the headset then hops out. He opens the backdoor and grabs his backpack and Piper's small duffle. The trio then follows Khione into the hospital. The biggest shock to Leo is the fact that the hospital is very empty. Even early in the morning, he expects to see nurses, other patients, or even a janitor, but the floor had few people.

"Finally, you are here. He doesn't have much time. Hurry up," he hears one of the few people on the floor say. Leo gets a good look at him and sees that he is actually wielding a large jagged sword. He was a very tall and buff man, who despite looking like he was in his late thirties, had an entire head of white hair. It takes Leo a bit to recognize who this was.

"Calais?" Leo asks the large man. He smirks at Leo.

"Good to see ya kid, you're still way too scrawny," Calais says slapping Leo on the shoulder, resulting in Leo falling to the floor. "Khi, hurry, Papa says that there isn't much time left."

"What do you mean? Is he dying?" Piper asks. Calais looks like he was trying to figure out how to put it into words.

"Hurry," Khione says grabbing Leo by the arm. He follows her downs a hallway to a room at the end of the hall. Piper taps him on the shoulder.

"So are we going to just ignore the whole, big dude has a sword, thing?" Leo shrugs as they enter the room. When he enters the room, he sees Boreas in the hospital bed. It had been almost nine years since he last saw him. His hair was a grayish hue, being almost the same color as the hospital gown that he was wearing.

"Leo, iz zat you?" Leo heard him say in his heavy french accent. Even though his eyes were open, he wasn't looking at him. He smiles. "It is you. _Tu es tellement gros._ "

"He said that you've gotten bigger," Khione and Piper say at the same time. Everybodies eyes fall on Piper.

"I know French, got a problem with it?" she says indignantly. Everybody shakes their heads, except for Boreas who laughs.

" _Je ne m'attendais jamais à rencontrer la soeur de Léo. Piper, tu es aussi jolie que ce qu'il m'a dit._ " Piper blushed as he spoke.

"T _u me flattes_." Piper leans forward and looks into his eyes. " _Mais je ne sais pas si vous pouvez me voir."_

" _Je ne vois pas seulement avec mes yeux. Je suis ce que vous appelez un ESPer. Je vois le passé, le présent et l'avenir de ceux que j'aime, même si je ne peux pas les voir_ ," he says with a weak smile. Leo leans over to Khione.

"What's wrong with him?" Khione pulls him towards the door, not leaving, just standing by the door. She takes a heavy breath.

"The doctor's don't know. They don't know why his sight is gone, or why he has had seizures every few days."

"But?" She glances back at her dad.

"It's his power. Normally he used to get headaches whenever he used it, but apparently over the past few years, it was worse. That's why I came back," she tells him guiltily. Some of her hair fell down and covered her face.

"Is it his age? The strain it takes to see the us, must be too much for his mind now."

" _Léo, La femme que vous recherchez est à proximité_ ," Boreas says. Before he could respond, Leo hears a commotion coming from the outside. He opens the door to peek out, but he was hit in the face as the door opened. Leo falls on his butt and sees Jason ready his lance, Piper draws her crossbow from the back of her pants, and Khione's hands encase themselves in ice. A man with black hair and light blue eyes, similar to how Khione's look, stumbles in clutching his side. He was bleeding from the right side of is abdomen. He was wearing what was once a nice suit, but there were cuts and scrapes all over it, not to mention the blood that was soaking it. In his other was a sword made entirely of ice. Leo recognizes this as Khione's other older brother, Zethes. Khione drops her and and gestures for Piper and Jason to lower their weapons as well. Zethes uses the sword as a cane to make his way into the room, looking directly at his father.

"They found us," he says to the occupants of the room. Jason and Piper both look at Leo.

"The ones who tried to kill Leo?" Khione asks, causing Leo to look at her. "I told you that I was there to see you." Piper glares at her. Jason, who clearly wanted to change the subject turns to Zethes.

"Are they guys in all black, mercenary looking people?" Jason turns and grabs some towels and walks up to help stop the blood. He puts the towel on the wound and has Zethes put pressure on it.

"Yeah, a lot of them. And there was another." Jason pulls his tie off and starts to tie it around Zethes's waist to keep constant pressure on it.

"Another? Did he look like a cowboy?" Leo asks, finally getting off the floor. Zethes shakes his head.

"No, it was like a ripple."

"A ripple?" Piper asks, looking out the window to the ground floor.

"The air just rippled and people were dead." Jason and Leo meet eyes.

"A movement based Enhanced?"

"Sounds like it."

"He is here," Leo heard Boreas say. Within a blink of an eyes Leo felt something grab him and suddenly he was on a sandy beach. He looks around and sees all of the bags right next to him. He scrambles to his backpack and puts his hand on his hammer. As soon as he does, he hears the sound of something hitting the sand behind him. He turns and readies his hammer. On the ground in front of him was Jason.

"Jason, what is happening?"

"Where the hell are we?" Jason asks looking around frantically

"-hell did they go? Where the hell am I?" Leo hears Piper says behind him. "Leo, what is happening?" The air ripples and suddenly Khione falls onto Leo. She looks up at Leo before looking around. She takes a step back and looks around.

"Um…"

"We don't know either," Jason answers her. Leo claps at Piper and points at his wrist. She looks confused for a moment before realizing what he wanted. She quickly pulls off the watch and tosses it to Leo. He catches it and taps the button and a holographic map appears from the watch face.

"Well, we are in Key Largo, so that solves one problem."

"How did we get here?" Khione asks. She turns towards Jason. "You guys said something about a movement Enhancer."

"It's a classification we designated. We break up Demi-humans into five categories: Enhancers, ESPer, Elementals, Diviners, and Mages. An Enhancer is someone who can enhance their body to do extraordinary things, like super-strength, replication, or super-speed," Jason explains. The air ripples again, but this time instead of someone falling out of the ripple and it running off again, this time the ripple turned into a person. It was a man wearing an almost all black super suit with a gold caduceus in the center. He is also wearing a white speed bikers helmet and aviator goggles.

"Hey guys," the figure says bouncing in place from one foot to the other. He pulls his goggles to his neck and smiles at the group.

"Travis?" Piper asks.

"What are you doing here?" Jason asks in shock.

"Saving lives, you know the hero thing." Travis's figure blinked out of existence for a second before reappearing. "Hey." blink "-are we-" blink "-punching-" blink "-her today-" blink "-or are we-" blink "-working-" blink "-with-" blink "-the-" blink "-Ice Queen-" Travis stops blinking in and out of existence, breathing heavy.

"Working with her for now," Piper says, still suspicious of Khione.

"Good, we need all the help we can get," A voice said to the left of them. They turn and see Connor and Katie walking up to them. "Did you lose her?"

"Does it look like I lost her?" Travis says to his brother. He super speeds to Katie and suddenly there were four bottles of water at her feet as Travis disappears again.

"Who are you guys talking about?" Jason asks. He pulls his Ventus suit out of his backpack.

"Some girl who can move at super-speed, but she's wearing some sort of suit to do it."

"Like an exoskeleton?" Leo asks.

"That's exactly what it is."

"What is it? I know that the gears are turning in your head," Piper says to Leo. She started to set her Nevermore suit in the quick changer.

"Orion."

"What about him?"

"He didn't miss. I've been going over it and every single bullet he shot hit a target that he needed it to hit. It was almost robotic." Jason turns his head.

"Are you saying he was a robot?"

"No, but his eye, it flashed r-."

"No time, look," Connor said pointing to the water. The water was making waves that wasn't natural. Suddenly Travis was in the ground next to them.

"Travis!" Katie cries. A flash of green light happens and suddenly Katie was in her Flora garb. She was wearing "clothes" that was similar to a one piece bathing suit made of green leaves. She was wearing high heeled boots that look like they were made of leaves and vines. She raised her right hand and a patch of vines sprouted from the beach and pulled Travis out of the ground. Out of nowhere a woman wearing a black tank-top and khaki pants appeared. Over her clothes were what look like hydraulic legs and arms. Like Travis and his Speedster suit, she was wearing a pair of aviator goggles.

"Speedster, you must realized you can't beat me. I am just like you, but better." The mysterious girl looks at the rest of the group. "Flora, Quantum, Nevermore, Ventus, Phoenix, and the Ice Queen. Looks like you brought some friends." She reaches into her pocket and pulls out some black business cards, the same ones that Orion had. She quickly flips through them and pulls out four. "Looks like you're on the list Ice Queen. Four kill will get me so much higher on the ranking." She went down into a runner's stance. Travis vibrates himself and shakes the vines off and gets into a runner's stance himself. Leo readies his hammer by setting it ablaze. As he does not have his suit to help him fight, he was at a big disadvantage in this fight. He looks to his left and sees Piper and Jason in their respective suits, weapons up and ready to strike. To his left, Khione and Katie were in a fighting stance. Conner was behind him, wearing his white suit with a gold caduceus. On his head was a large visor with twenty lenses on it. This is used to expand his field of vision to improve his power of teleportation.

"Before we start this off, I never got your name," Travis said, not moving a muscle.

"The name is Nike."

"Like the shoe brand?" Leo asks. Everybody turns to look at him.

"Like the Goddess of speed and victory." Then the battle began. Nike and Travis both disappear, only ripples, clashing sounds, and wind are the only evidence that a super speed battle was actually occurring. Jason jumps up and takes flight, using his wind lance to through inds into the areas where he believes the battle to be occurring. Khione creates massive walls of ice to limit the battle and to prevent anybody from seeing, although this was the strangest structure to see in Florida. Katie touches the ground and summons vines into the new arena, probably meant to entangle Nike and reduce her speed, and it seemed to work. The ripples were much larger, indicating that they were moving much slower. Leo heard a murmur to his left and suddenly he couldn't move. Both of the super-speed fighters lock up and come tumbling out of combat. They are both frozen as if they were in the middle of running when they froze. Piper starts walking forward with handcuffs in her hands As soon as Nike was handcuffed, Leo is able to move again. Conner blinks into existence next to Travis and starts to treat his wounds. Leo, realizing that he contributed nothing to the fight hurries over to Nike and disconnects the hydraulics to her speed suit. Once he disconnects the last hydraulic, Khione destroys her ice walls. Nike starts laughing.

"What's so funny? We just kicked your ass," Piper said.

"Oh, you know nothing. You are insignificant people, playing cops and robbers at the expense of human lives. All of you are just the defects that lead to perfection." She starts to stand up. Piper puts her crossbow to Nike's back.

"That's what all the crazies say." Suddenly the handcuffs snap and Nike snatches the crossbow from Piper's hand.

"The boss is waiting. I suppose I won't be getting my rank up today." She turns and runs at an incredible speed, not nearly as fast as she was going before, but so fast that she was a blur.

"She had speed even without the hydraulics," Leo said.

"It's like they were just boosting her speed," Jason says landing next to him.

"But where did she get that? And Valdez, did you notice?" Piper asks picking up the crossbow that Nike dropped.

"A second crazy chick who is also wearing a black tank top and khaki pants, has powers that are very similar to a demi-human but is somehow off, and was trying to kill an argonaut? No definitely didn't notice a thing," Leo said sarcastically.

"Wait are you talking about that ESPer who was at the warehouse?" Jason asked.

"It fits."

"Guys," Connor calls out. The trio rush over to Connor and the others. Travis was not looking well, his face was bloody and his suit had a lot of rips and tears. His breathing was very shallow and his left eye was almost completely swollen shut.

"Trav," Katie cried, her plant clothing disappearing, returning her old civilian clothing. She put her ear to his chest and listened to his breathing. She then reached into her pocket and pulled out a small flashlight. She then checked his eyes responses.

"..what're you doing?" Travis slurred out. She put the light away and tapped on his left eye. "That hurts."

"Well you're not dying for now," she said relieved. Travis smiled weakly, wincing slightly as he does.

"...how would you know? Everybody knows that vets aren't people doctors." She glares at him before punching him lightly on the gut.

"Lucky for you, you are just a mutt." She says helping him up.

"Let's go. We all need to get back to the Argo. Annabeth is probably freaking out that we left," Leo said walking towards the dock.

"Wait you didn't tell her you were leaving?" Piper and Jason ask.

"I didn't tell her about the message, why would I tell her I'm leaving?" Leo asks. Everybody starts making their way towards the Pandora except Khione. Leo turns and looks at her. "Khi, come on."

"I can't go, my papa...I should be with him." Leo and her lock eyes and he nods slightly. Leo looks down at his wrist and pulls his watch off. He walks over to her and puts it in her hands, cupping hers in turn.

"Take this. If you ever need anything, you can use this. Anyday, anytime." She nods. She leans in and kisses him on the cheek.

"I'll keep you up to date about my papa." He smiles and lets go of her hands. He then jogs to catch up with the group. Jason slows down so Leo can catch up to him.

"So are we going to talk about that?" he asks quietly.

"Nope," Leo says shutting it down. His thoughts go back to Calypso. Leo didn't know what Boreas said before he was forced away from Tampa, but he had a feeling that it had something to do with her. As they approach the dock, Leo notices that the sun was rising over the horizon. He looked at his wrist before he realized that he gave Khione his watch away. He guessed that it was about seven am. As Katie and Connor were loading Travis into the boat, a little boy came running up. He was about seven years old, with curly brown hair, and almond brown eyes. He look like he was of hispanic descent.

"Hiya, are you fisherman? Did you catch anything?" the boy asks trying to look past Leo.

"Uh, no we aren't fisherman. We are just...visitor." The boy finally looks past Leo.

"Why is that man wearing a weird outfit? Is he a hero like my mommy told me about?" Leo looks back and sees most of party was in the boat. He crouches down so he was at eye level with the boy.

"Can you keep a secret?" he asks. The boy nods. "He is a hero. His name is Speedster." The boys eyes go wide.

"My mommy told me all about him. He can run fast."

"Yeah, he got hurt so I'm here to help him," he says patting his head.

"Who is she?" he asks pointing behind him. Leo turns and sees Piper, whose eyes were wide.

"The Nevermore. She's a friend of mine." Leo stood up. "I have to go now kid. Remember, this is a secret," he says putting his finger to his mouth. The boy copied the gesture before holding his pinky out. Leo is confused by the gesture.

"Pinky promise." Leo smile and links fingers with the kid before turning around. Piper blinks a few times before turning and walking with Leo.

"Who was that?" Piper asks, worry in her voice.

"I dunno. Some kid," he says shrugging. He turns to look at her and she still looks concerned. "Don't worry Beauty Queen, he can't get us arrested, he's a kid. Odds are we won't see him again," he says getting into the boat. Leo smiles to try to cover his own worry. The water was sloshing around him, started to get to his head. He instinctively closes his eyes.

"You okay Valdez?" Katie asks him. He hears Piper and get in and the water sloshes again. He feels his words getting stuck in his throat. He wants to tell them he's fine but he can't.

"Motion...sickness," he chokes out. He feels someone start to rub his back. He opens his eyes and sees Piper giving him a look and he knows what the look was. She knows something is wrong with him, but she didn't know what it was. He saw her glance towards the shore at the kid before looking back at him. He closes his eyes and he hears the engine going again. Leo moves and lays his head down next to him and Katie stops rubbing his back. He keeps his eyes closed for the entire duration of the boat ride to the Argo, only opening them when he was in the ship itself. As they were making their way up the floors, Piper grabs his arm and pulls him into the engine room. "Whoa Piper, take it easy. People might get the wrong-" Piper punching the metal by his head shuts him up.

"Spill," she says staring into her eyes. Her eyes seemed darker than usual. Piper seems more irritable right now so he decides to tell her the truth and he sighs.

"I have been having...panic attacks I guess you'd call them."

"How long?" She asks pulling her fist from the wall, a small dent appeared where her fist was.

"Since I've woken up." She runs her hands through her hair and walks in a circle.

"Do these panic attacks have anything to do with you being exhausted all the time?" Leo gives her a confused look. "Bags under the eyes."

"No that would be the nightmares." She throws her arms up into the air.

"Why haven't you told us?"

"How would that conversation go down? Hey guys, great to see you, I know there is some group out to murder us all, but I don't know how much help I'll be. I have trouble breathing when I see a puddle of water, it's a good thing we are living on a boat surrounded by water. Oh did I mention that I keep flashing back to the moment I almost drowned seven years ago. What about the fact that every single bad thing that has happened to my friends can be traced back to the fact that the world thinks I died seven years ago. Oh I almost forgot to mention that I don't sleep anymore since I'm not only scared that I won't wake up, but I'm visited by all of the people who I've known who has died, or people who are probably dead based on how much time has passed-" Leo rambles out until Piper hugs him. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry," he whispers. He didn't even realized it but he had started crying.

"It's not your fault. It's not your fault," Piper told him. She pulls away from him and wipes the tears from his eyes before wiping her own. "Maybe we could talk to Will. He could give you something that could help or…"Piper trails off. Leo shakes his head.

"No. No one can know."

"Leo."

"We are facing an unknown enemy right now and we are short handed. I can't bother peoples with this while we have so much to do."

"But-"

"There is too much going on. Once it's over. Then I'll tell them." Leo looks at her. "Can you keep it a secret?" She nods slightly. She turns and sees his cot in the corner of the room.

"Are you sleeping here?"

"I'm not sleeping in general, but I've been staying here. I can't be in that room without…" he trails off. He looks back at Piper. "Can you...I just need to be alone right now." Piper starts to walk out, turning when she gets to the door.

"I'm here for you, you know that right?"

"I know. Thanks Piper." She walks out of the door and Leo lays down and stares at the ceiling.

* * *

 **Hello, so it definitely has not been 15 and a half weeks since I last updated. I definitely was not play way too much Overwatch or Miitopia or anything like that. And I definitely was not watching my niece all summer...sorry.**

 **Next update: September 15th (for reals this time.)**


	7. Chapter 6

Name: Perseus "Percy" Jackson

Occupation: High School Teacher, Father, Swimmer, Hero

Alias: Oceanmaster

Date: December 19th XX24

Chapter 6: Calm

Percy floats along the ocean with a group of fish swimming around him. He quickly counts the fish before tugging on the rope that dangles from the Argo. He feels the rope start to move upward and he holds on tight with his right hand as he is raised up towards the main deck. He clenches his left hand and draws a ball of water up the rope with him, a ball of water full of fish. When he gets close to the railing, he throws the ball of water onto the deck and climbs the rope the rest of the way. He pulls himself over the rail and sees all twelve fish flopping on the deck next to Piper and Jason. Jason was holding a bucket, collecting the fish, while Piper takes sips from her beer as she holds her fishing rod. She is sitting on one of the two lawn chairs that are placed right by the railing. By the other lawnchair is a fishing pole with the line wound up.

"It's not fair," Piper says. "Jason and I have been here for three hours and didn't get a single nibble, but you come here and in twenty minutes you have a dozen fish." She sits back and drinks more of her beer. He looks and sees that there were two more empty bottles next to her.

"Well, it helps that the fish see him as a god," Jason says pulling off his gloves and setting the bucket down.

"I wouldn't say god, but they just offer. Apparently I look like some old mythical figure."

"A mythical figure...like a god," Piper says leaning forward in her chair. She pulls her fishing line out of the water and props the pole against the rail.

"Sure. I'm a fish god," Percy says giving up. He sits down in the other chair and looks at Piper. "So what are you going to do?" he asks her in a quiet voice. She stares that the label of the empty bottle.

"Not sure," she says not looking up.

"We have to tell him," Jason says leaning on the back of Piper's chair.

"It's not our news to tell," she replies curtly.

"If he asks about her, I'm telling him," Percy says. Piper and Jason both look at him. "He deserves to know."

"He can't handle knowing that," Piper says putting the bottle down.

"You don't know that."

"I do. Look, you can't tell him now. We are heading straight into a war against a group that we don't know about. You can't just tell him-"

"It's the truth. Even if you don't want to hear it you need to know the truth."

"Fuck that!" Piper exclaims standing up. "He's…" she trails off. Piper leans against the rail and looks out towards the ocean. "Leo is in a delicate place. If we tell him, it could cause him to spiral. Just like when his mom died." Percy's gaze drops and he looks at the deck.

"He deserves to know. Wouldn't you want to know if you were him?" Piper doesn't answer. The trio were silent for a few minutes, just the sounds of the fish flopping in the bucket making sounds. She turns around, grabs her empty bottles, and grabs the bucket of fish.

"I'll clean them. See ya," she mumbles out as she leaves. Jason's gaze follows her into the interior of the ship. Jason sighs and sits in the seat that she was just in.

"Do you think she's keeping something from us?"

"It's Piper. If she is, she'll tell us when the time is right." Jason stands up and looks at the ocean.

"You can head in, I just need to think." Percy nods and heads into the ship. He heads into the command center and sees what he would call hectic. Travis, who was apparently feeling better, was running everything computer in the command center, was managing the incoming messages, and was playing chess with Katie. Annabeth was at the holographic table, her brow furrowed. She was watching various news reports at the same time. He walks up behind her and wraps his hands around her and puts his head on her left shoulder.

"Whatcha doing?" he asks kissing her on the cheek. She smiles and puts her hands on his.

"I'm watching the news."

"Anything worth note?" he asks looking at the holograms.

"The Demi-human that Piper and Leo caught broke out of jail. The police were trying to cover it up, but someone leaked it."

"Seriously?"

"They said the Anti-Demi-human tech they normally use didn't seem to affect her."

"Seriously?"

"Yeah. There was another news broadcast about Piper, Leo, and Jason's secret outing."

"I'm not exactly complaining about their secret outing," Katie says moving a piece.

"Well, that led to that Neil Roe guy putting another statement on Demi-humans again."

"That like his third one this week," Travis says.

"Anything from home?" Percy asks.

"Apparently the school is taking days off since we went missing." He nods into her shoulder. "Speaking of which, did you tell your mom you're okay?" Percy freezes.

"Um…"

"Did you tell your dad?"

"Um…"

"Paul?" she asks, turning around to look at him. He smiles sheepishly and scratches the back of his head. "Perseus Jackson," she says putting her hand on her hips, doing her mom pose.

"Sorry, I just forgot. Plus we just got on the boat five days ago. Not to mention the fact that I had to go to Miami and the morning where Leo, Jason, and Piper left and came back with a concussed Travis."

"It wasn't a major concussion," he heard Travis say as he zips around the room. "Plus I heal pretty fast."

"You still shouldn't be running," Katie said not looking up from the chess board.

"Exactly, a lot of stuff happened." Annabeth sighs and pulls out her phone.

"I'll tell her," Annabeth says. She sniffs and looks up at Percy with an eyebrow raised. He gives her a confused look before sniffing his shirt. Despite the fact that he was completely dry from when he jumped into the ocean, his clothes smelled a lot like fish. "I'll tell your mom, you go change shirts," she says laughing. She leans up and kisses his cheek before pushing him out the door. He chuckles and starts making his way down to the bedrooms. He opens the door to his room when his comm device sends him an alert. He pulls it out and looks at what the alert was about. The alert showed that one if his rouges was causing panic in New Orleans. He puts it in his pocket and runs down to the armory. He carefully moves past the kids who were playing in the hall and makes it to his locker. He opens it up and pulls his hoodie on before strapping the armor into place. He hears footsteps coming from the hallway and sees Annabeth coming.

"You got the alert too?" he asks her as he pulls his sword sheath onto his belt.

"Of course I did, he is our rouge," she says pulling the jumpsuit on. He grabs his trident and helps put some of her armor plating on. She pins her cape on and puts the scanner on her left eye. Percy turns around and grabs his spare mask and hands it over to her.

"Looks like you need a real mask now." She nods and takes her scanner off, puts the mask on, and puts the scanner on top of it.

"Mommy? Daddy?" Percy hears behind him. He turns and sees Freddy and his water wolf looking at him.

"Hey Freddy, what's up?" He asks walking over to his son.

"Why are you wearing that?" he asks, his hands behind his back. His eyes go wide and he looks at the wolf. The wolf looks at him for a second before turning into a small puddle of water. Percy crouches down and pats his head.

"Well, mommy and daddy are wearing this to protect people."

"Like a superhero?"

"I guess you can call us that." Annabeth joins him next to their son and she kisses the top of his head.

"We need to go somewhere right now, but we will be right back okay?" Freddy nods and hugs Annabeth's leg.

"I love you," he says, it slightly muffled because he was talking into Annabeth's leg.

"We love you too," Percy says. Freddy lets go and Percy and Annabeth leave the armory. Percy looks at Annabeth and sees some tears in her eyes. He reaches up and wipes them from her face. "We'll come back. I promise."

"I'm not crying," Annabeth says defiantly. They make their way to the command center where everybody except for Will has congregated. Piper, and Connor were at the computer consoles, Jason and Leo were standing by the map, Nico was in the corner meditating, and Travis was laying in Katie's lap. "What happened here?" Annabeth asks as they walk past them.

"Headache, didn't heal fast enough," Travis says groggily.

"I told you so," Katie reply flicking his ear. Percy walks up to Jason who has a headset on. He turns and gives Percy a half nod.

"I figured you two would want to run this, so I'm going to be your guys ears, Valdez will have eyes, and Nico will be standing by if you two will need backup." He turns towards the map and zooms in. "We are about half an hour from shore, so you should be fine using your magic boots," Jason says to Annabeth. He turns back to the map and circles it.

"This is where Aries started his rampage, but he's been quiet for a while so…" Leo trails off.

"Either he got tired or he was fighting someone off," Annabeth finishes.

"Any idea if he was killing soldiers in black clothes?" Percy asks

"Not sure. Have fun out there you two," Jason says hitting them on the shoulders.

"Not too much fun," Leo adds in. Annabeth rolls her eyes and the pair head to the top deck of the ship. Percy straps the trident to his back and locks his sword into its sheath.

"Race ya," Annabeth says getting ready to run and jump off the ship.

"Oh it is so on," Percy says getting into a runner's stance. The two both run and jump off of the ship, with Percy going into the water and Annabeth floating above the water. It takes the duo half an hour to arrive in the city of New Orleans, and the race ended with Annabeth as the winner. She stood cockily in front of her husband as he gets out of the water.

"Finally, I was starting to get bored," she says with a smile. She reaches out her arm and helps Percy climb out of the water.

"How was that fair? I had to swim all the way around a huge landmass while you just floated over it, and not to mention the fact that I was chased by like four different sharks," he says looking behind him, making sure said sharks weren't going to appear and eat him.

"Sounds like excuses Seaweed Brain," Annabeth says pulling some kelp that had gotten stuck on his hood. Percy taps his earpiece and Jason's voice comes through.

"You guys there? I turned off the audio for a bit because I didn't want to hear the fish god get eaten by a shark."

"Hardy har har. Where do we go?" Percy hears muttering on the other end of the line. He looks at Annabeth as he waits. She looked regal in her Minerva suit. The gray suit seemed to look white in the bright light of Louisiana.

"Ok, you guys are headed to the University of New Orleans. It was the last place he was spotted."

"Great, where is that?" he asks looking around to see where he was.

"It's West of here," Annabeth says starting to walk down a street.

"How did you know that?" he asks her trying to catch up. She opens her mouth but the sound of a passenger jet nearby drowns her out. She closes her mouth, crosses her arms, and starts tapping her foot, waiting for it to quiet down. When it does she tries again.

"That is the library of the university," she says pointing to a large building across the water. She holds her hand out and Percy takes it. She wraps both arms around Percy and flies off towards college. They land a few feet behind the police line right outside the library. When they land, three police officers turn around and train their guns on them.

"Freeze, keep your hands in the air," One of them says, his gun shaking slightly. An older officer hears the commotion and turns around. He looked to be the leader of the group. He walks over to the young officer and pulls his gun down.

"What are you doing rookie?" he says gesturing for the other two to lower their weapons.

"Sir, they are Demi-humans, we have to arrest them."

"Says who? The idiots on Capitol Hill?" The officer was speechless. "Plus I owe these two." Percy and Annabeth look at each other before looking at the older police officer. "Names Captain John Harper. Nine years ago, you two stopped a zombie invasion near Hoover Dam."

"Technically, it was a necromancer who was summoning skeletons," Percy interjects. Annabeth elbows him in the ribs.

"Potato, potato. You kept a bus from falling into the Colorado river, my daughter was in that bus."

"We were just doing our job," Annabeth says.

"I owe you either way. Instead of having to visit a tombstone, I visit Detective Harper in New York." He turns at looks at the rest of his men before turning back to the duo. "What do you need us to do?" Annabeth looks around and her eyes get filled with lines.

"I assume you cleared the library?" Annabeth asks. Captain Harper nods.

"Cleared everybody out since Aries went to the roof."

"Why would he go to the roof? It puts him in a terrible position tactically," Annabeth says looking at the building. Percy turns around and points at a building.

"That building is much higher and would be even better,"

"Didn't make sense to us either. We have a sniper team up there." Percy looks closely and sees the sun glint off of the sniper's scope.

"Well, we can take care of him." Captain Harper nods and reaches for his radio.

"All units, do not fire on Oceanmaster or Minerva, I repeat do not fire. They will assist us with the Aries situation." Percy and Annabeth walk into the library with their weapons drawn. Percy holds Riptide in his right hand with his deployable shield attached to his left arm. Annabeth holds a dagger in her left hand and a small handgun in her left. The handgun fires modified bullets that release a mild sedative on impact. Percy leads with his shield up while Annabeth watches his back as they make their way up the library. They find the ladder that leads to the roof and climb up. Percy opens the hatch and goes up shield first. When he gets up there, he redraws Riptide and presses a button on it. Almost instantly, the sharp edge turn round and electricity surrounds it, turning it from a sharp sword into a stunning sword. He sees Aries standing with his back against the wall of the library roof. In his hands was the massive ruby red broadsword that he likes to use. Percy takes a good look at him. He looks almost the same as he did before. He wears a dark pair of sunglasses, a blood red shirt, a black studded leather jacket, black jeans, and a pair of combat boots. He had a large arsenal of weapons with him. On his back was an M16 assault rifle, in his left boot was a large knife, on both of his thighs were a pair of handguns, hidden under his jacket was another handgun. Percy also knows that there is a revolver in a holster on the back of jeans, another one strapped to his right ankle, and had a short sword inside his jacket.

"You finally showed up," he says throwing his cigarette to the ground. He pulls his broadsword out of the ground and puts it on his left shoulder.

"You're going back to prison Aries," Percy says getting into a defensive stance.

"In your dreams kid." Aries looks around. "Where's the girlfriend? Who's gonna hold your hand when you get beaten to a pulp?" As if on cue, Annabeth rockets out of the hatch and fires four shots at Aries. He turns and blocks all of the shots with his sword. He then waves his hand dispersing the gas.

"Its wife now," she says landing next to Percy. She clicks a button, and like Riptide, her dagger goes from kill mode to hurt mode.

"Still using the baby weapons I see." Aries gets into a battle stance and runs at the two. He swings downward and Percy is able to block it using is shield. The amount of force that Aries used forced him to drop to one knee. "Let's see if you can still fight." Percy pushes back and swings his sword towards his leg. Aries catches it with the hilt of his massive sword. Percy kicks him in the knee and bashes him with his shield. Aries stumbles backwards and regains his footing. Annabeth flanked around and fires a volley of bullets into his back. Percy then opens one of his tanks and throws a stream of waters towards Aries. Aries takes every hit from both of them before he strikes the ground with his sword. From where his sword hit, a shock wave forms knocking Percy to the ground, while it sent Annabeth spinning in the air. Percy sits up and barely gets his sword up in time to block Aries next strike. Percy places one hand on his blade to ensure that he has enough force to keep Aries blade at bay. Aries grits his teeth before he lets out a cry of pain. Percy pushes off and smacks him in the face with the shocking part of his sword. Aries looked unfazed by this and knocks the sword out of Percy's hand. He raises his shield as Aries kicks it and Percy flies back against one of the walls. He pulls his trident off of his back and charges forward. Aries was busy fighting Annabeth, who was using the hover boots to assist her with doing flips and dodging Aries strikes. She had picked up Riptide and was using it in conjunction with her dagger, having put her handgun back into its holster. Percy stabs his trident towards Aries, who dodges it. Percy then twirls the trident and hits his leg with the hilt of the trident and Aries falls slightly. Annabeth then uses both feet to kick Aries away, creating space between them. Aries leans on his sword, breathing pretty heavy, mirroring how Annabeth and Percy were breathing. He stands up slightly and looks at both of them. "You still got it. A bit rusty, but the talent is still there." He raises his sword and both Annabeth and Percy get into a stance. Aries places his sword back into the sheath on his back and puts his hands on his waist.

"What are you doing?" Percy asks suspiciously, not lowering his guard. Aries unbuckles the sheath and throws it on the ground before them. He pulls the M16 off, unloads it and throws it with the sword. He does the same with handguns on his thighs, the handgun in his jacket, the knife in his boot, the revolver on his belt the revolver on his ankle, and the expandable short sword in his jacket. Percy lowers his guard, as does Annabeth. She raises her eyebrow and Aries sighs. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out two hand grenades. He gently places them on the ground. He then throws his jacket on the ground and spins in a circle.

"No weapons," he says holding both hands up.

"Right back pocket," Annabeth says, her hand on the scanning lens. He reaches into it and pulls out a small, crude pocket knife. He tosses it to Percy and he catches it easily.

"What's this,?" Percy asks looking at the knife.

"It's a knife Jackson." Percy's blood runs cold. He looks up from it and stares at Aries.

"How did-"

"-did I find out?" Aries asks cutting him off. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a phone. He tosses that to Annabeth. She catches it and looks through it.

"Look," she says showing him. It was a list of names with aliases. He saw his name, Annabeth's, Piper's, and many more names of Demi-humans, but there were many names that he did not recognize. "Where did you get this?" she asks.

"Picked it up off one of those mercs who tried to kill me. I'm on there too." Percy scrolls to down the list and sees Aries name.

"Andrew La Rue. Wait La Rue?" he asks in shock.

"Yeah, Clair, Sher, and Mark are my kids. They picked a better path than I did."

"Clair?" Percy snickers. Annabeth smacks him in the back of the head.

"What is a criminal doing on this list?" she asks glaring at Percy.

"Looks like whoever wants you gone is aiming to kill all demi-humans, not just Argonauts." Annabeth looks closely and points to the phone.

"Percy, some of the names are crossed out." He looks again and recognizes a lot of the names that are crossed out. Aries turns and looks out towards the sky, looking for something. "Why are you giving this to us?" It takes Aries a few moments to answer.

"You two have kids?" he asks still not looking at them.

"Yeah, daughter and son."

"You would do anything for them, wouldn't you?"

"Of course." He is silent for a few moments.

"I may have done some terrible things, most of which I want to blame of the Warrior's gifts, but I did them to keep my kids safe." He turns around and looks at them. "Now, someone is coming after my kids. They might not like it, and they might not like how I will do it, but I will protect them again. Till my last breathe." Aries reaches down and puts his jacket on and starts to load his weapons again. "Now if you goodie two shoes will run along now, there are some mercs who need to die." Percy looks up and sees four black helicopters heading towards the campus.

"That's suicide." Aries took off his glasses and Percy saw his eyes for the first time. Like Clarisse's eyes, his dark brown eyes reminded him of pigs. That was before they ignited and turned into small fire balls.

"No, this is Thursday," He says cocking his rifle. "Now get out of here. Keep them safe." Percy realizes he's still holding the pocket knife and shows it to Aries. "Give that to Clair, tell her it's to keep her safe." He then turns and fires his rifle at the incoming helicopter. Annabeth grabs Percy and jumps off of the building and slows them down just enough so they don't break both of their legs. Captain Harper, who had his gun out now, crouches over to them and guides them behind a squad car.

"What the hell happened out there?"

"Not much time to explain, but you guys need to get out of here. Bad guy, worse than Aries, are coming after Demi-humans and who knows what they'd do to you guys," Annabeth says. Percy turns and sees many of the officers were trying to figure out what to do, looking at their captain for orders.

"No, we are here to protect the people. We will stay and fight until we are sure everybody is safe." Percy nods at him. A shadow behind one of the lamp post starts to get darker. Whispers start to fill his ears as the shadow rises, taking the form of a person crouching. The darkness explodes and Nico, in his Umber costume, appears. His costume, like many of the other Diviners, was a reflection of his entity. In his case, the entity that he was channeling was Darkness; the personification of darkness, death, and sanity. This causes Nico to wear a black cloak that is made entirely of shadows. Underneath is a similarly dark shirt and pants. Across his chest are two silver chains that hug his torso tightly. His hands seem to make claws rather than hands. His legs sometimes seem to disappear and reform like they were made of smoke or shadows. Under the hood of his cloak was a white mask that looked like a skull. In the eyes of the mask were two green glowing eyes. In his right claw was a black and silver sword that seemed to absorb all of the light around him. He stands up and lets go of the sword and it vanishes into smoke.

"We lost audio after the fighting started," Nico says with his gravely, echoey voice. "It took me a while to find a shadow that I can travel through." As he spoke, Percy starts to hear whispers. They were incoherent, but they were persistent, trying to get their message across.. "STOP!" Nico said and the whispers stop, some of the shadows on his cloak seemed to dissipate. "Sorry Oceanmaster."

"What was that?" Percy asks looking at his hand, which was slightly shaking.

"No time. We need to go," he says grabbing both of them by the shoulder and directing them to the shadow of the large building. When Nico touches him, Percy feels cold, even though her was wearing a hoodie and armor, the cold seems to penetrate through it. Nico lets go of his shoulder and reaches out. As he closes his fist, the sword that he used earlier appears. He swipes the air and a dark hole appears. Nico puts his arm around Percy's neck and pulls them both in. For the next few moments, they were in complete darkness. Percy did not know how long they were in there as time seemed to pass weirdly. Percy felt his mind hurting as it tries to comprehend the darkness that was around him. He felt very uneasy, his stomach twisting and turning within him. Suddenly a bright amount of light appears and he was in the command center of the Argos. As soon as he exits the hole, Percy drops on all fours and vomits. He hears more throwing up to his left and sees that Annabeth had also thrown up. Nico, who was not throwing up, fell to his knees with his hands going to his head. Percy assumes his eyes were closed as there was no light behind his mask. When the light does return, it was flashing between green and yellow. Will rushes into the room with a bow in his hand and an arrow that was very hard to look at. He draws it back and fires it at Nico. As soon as the arrow hits him, his Umber armor dissipates, leaving him in the same clothes he was wearing before Percy and Annabeth left. Nico closes his eyes and he collapses to the ground, effectively passing out. Will stumbles backwards and slowly falls down, his back against the wall. He was breathing heavy as he hands his bow to Mei, who apparently followed him in. She props the bow against the wall and opens her backpack. She pulls out a small bottle containing a glowing liquid and pulls out what looks to be a granola bar with chinese writing on it. Percy wipes his mouth on his sleeve and unsteadily stands up. He points at Nico.

"What just happened?" he asks, his voice very hoarse. Mei looks at him and pulls out a water bottle and gives it to him. He drinks most of the bottle in gulp. He smiles weakly at Mei, who bows slightly before turning back to Will.

"Sha. Dow. Tra. Vel," he says between breaths. He drinks the small bottle and opens the granola bar. "A quick way of traveling that involves entering the dark domain at one point and leaving in another," he says between chews. He stands up and turns toward his daughter. He bows slightly, with his hands together, and she smiles. He pats her head and walks over to Nico. "Shadow traveling twice in one day, not to mention back to back. You are a…" he turns to look at his daughter before turning back around "...dumb person?" he says confused at what he was saying. "I'll take him to the medbay and punish him later." He throws Nico onto his shoulder as if he didn't weigh a thing, and carries him down stairs. Mei puts her backpack and runs to follow her father, stopping to wave goodbye to Sally. Sally was sitting in one of the chairs and watched the entire thing.

"You guys made a mess," she says in a matter of fact tone.

"Very funny missy," he says pulling water from his water tank. He uses the water to encase the vomit and pulls it off of the ground. "Oh Sally. Do you want to take a bath?" he says with grin as he moves the ball of vomit water towards his daughter. She screams and runs out of the room. He drops the ball into the garbage.

"So when did comms cut out?" Annabeth asks as she pulls out the device from her ear.

"About the time when the ground made a huge sound."

"So you missed us talking about this," Annabeth says pulling the phone out of her pocket and tosses it to Leo. He catches it and he looks at the phone port. He opens one of the panels of the holotable and pulls out about twenty cables. He looks at all of them, puts one to the side and throws the rest back inside. He heads over to the computer and plugs it in.

"So, what am we looking for?"

"A list of names." Leo looks at the computer and Festus's dragon face pops up. He makes whirs and clicks that sounds like he's saying words, but Percy can't make head nor tail of it.

"Pull it up on the holotable," Leo says walking over to the table. The list of names that Percy and Annabeth had seen earlier pops up.

"Are these?" Jason asks.

"Aries picked it up off of a dead merc. He gave it to us."

"Why would he do that?" Piper asks.

"Festus, scroll down to Aries." The list shifts all the way down and highlights Aries's name.

"He's related to Clarisse?" Piper says in disbelief.

"Apparently he's her dad."

"So all the names that are crossed out…" Leo trails off.

"We can assume the worst," Annabeth says quietly. Percy looks around the room and sees that everybody was looking down. He looks at the map and sees that they are still about four hundred miles away from Galveston. That means that they were still about seven hours away.

"Look, we need to rest up to protect those who are still alive. Then we can figure out what the hell is happening," Percy says looking at everybody in the room. They nod and start to head down towards their rooms. Only Leo, Annabeth, and Jason stay in the command room.

"I know why I'm still here, why are you guys?" Leo asks.

"I'm waiting for Percy," Annabeth says.

"I need to use the computer," Jason says.

"Gross," Leo says. Jason looks confused for a moment before turning bright red.

"Not for that!" he exclaims. "I need to transfer some cash. Seeing as we don't know how long we will be here and we can't exactly get a steady income, I'll transfer as much funds as I can into one account and withdraw it."

"That's pretty smart," Percy says.

"So why are you here?" Annabeth says turning back to Leo. His eyes go wide.

"I already told you," he says.

"No, no you didn't.

"Hey isn't it the kids bedtime?" Leo asks looking at the clock.

"Changing the subject." Leo sighs and pulls up the map and the list of Argonauts who have checked in.

"I'm looking for Cal," he says sitting in the chair. "Since I've had trouble sleeping, I spend anytime I'm not working on the ship looking for her." Percy looks at him. He opens his mouth before he hears his phone ring. He looks around him and sees that he had left it on one of the desks. "That's been ringing since you left," Leo says.

"Why didn't you answer it?" Percy asks. He looks at the name and sees that his mom was calling him.

"Yeah, I know not to get in the way of an angry Mama Jackson," he says turning in his chair towards the computer. Percy smiles weakly at Annabeth, who had an "I told you so" face. He walks up to the main deck and answers the phone.

"PERSEUS JACKSON! WHY THE HELL HAVEN'T YOU BEEN ANSWERING YOUR PHONE?!" he hears her scream on the other line. He hears someone shushing her on her end of the phone.

"Uh, hey mom," he says sheepishly.

"Don't you dare, 'hey mom', me. Do you know how worried I was? You know that your home blew up a week ago! And what do I hear? Nothing! Nothing for a week! The only news I get is that you put on your superhero costume again and were fighting in New Orleans. You couldn't even bother to call me!" she rambles.

"I didn't have signal," he says.

"How do you not have signal on your way to Louisiana? There are no roaming charges on your carrier."

"I can't exactly make a phone call from the ocean."

"The ocean? Where are you?" she asks finally calming down.

"The Argos."

"I thought that sunk."

"Apparently Leo fixed it."

"Leo's alive?"

"Yeah."

"Does he know abou-"

"We haven't told him yet." His mom is silent on the other line.

"Are the kids and Annabeth safe?"

"They are. They are here with me."

"Good. Percy what is happening?"

"It seems like someone is going after Argonauts."

"They are?"

"Yeah, where are you guys?"

"I'm with your father, your sister, Paul, Athena and the Chase's." There sounds like a conversation happens on the other end of the line. "Athena wants to talk to you."

"Jackson," he hears his mother in law say.

"Yes ma'am?"

"I'm sure you are aware of what is happening."

"They are killing all Demi-humans, not just Argonauts."

"Indeed. We grouped up, not because we were worried for you, but because your sister is in danger," she says. She suddenly gets quieter. "Look, your parents and I are too well known to be killed in such barbaric manner, but your sister is not."

"You think she'll be targeted."

"It is logical. I believe she would be safest with you and your...companions."

"How does my mom feel about this?"

"I have not revealed this to her."

"Why don't you all come here?"

"You know that ship of yours was already at capacity, there is no way that every Demi-human can go there." It pains him, but she is right. Before the Argos sank, every room was full with most of them having two people in them. If even a third of them have a family, there is no way that they could fit.

"What will you do?" He hears her chuckle on the other side of the line. "Did you think that you were the only Demi-human who used their powers to fight. Your father and I should be able to take care of a small group."

"How will we get Cassie here?"

"You are going to Galveston correct?"

"How did you know?"

"Please," she says simply. "We can have Cassandra fly there and you can pick her up here."

"You're suggesting that my sixteen year old sister should fly to a city that will become a massive war zone?" he asks in disbelief.

"I will ask Frederick to send Matthew and Robert."

"So you are sending not just one civilian but three. Aren't you supposed to be the smart one?" He hears a low growl on the other line before the phone moves around.

"Um hey Percy," he hears his father-in-law say. "Athena looked like she was going to crush the phone in her hand so I took it from her, but I heard the gist of it. Matt and Bobby aren't just civilians." The phone changes hands again.

"Yeah, don't worry bro. We got this." He hears one of the twins say. He hears a small grunt on the other side.

"Are you flexing right now?" he asks them.

"N..no. Anyways, Dad has been training us to fight since we were little. We'll protect your sister."

"I have zero faith." The phone changes hands again.

"Percy, I hate to do this, but I do think that she should go with you guys." Percy thinks and looks out to the now night sky.

"Ok. We'll get Cassie, Bobby and Matt on the ship."

"Good. We have to go, someone is coming."

"Ok love you Mom," he says.

"Love you too. Stay safe. And protect your family." With that the line goes dead. He walks back down into the command center and sees that Jason had already left. Annabeth looks up from the chair and looks at him.

"Looks like our siblings are going to meet us in Texas."

"Wait what?"

"Your mom said it's better for Cassie to be with us, and the twins are going to escort her here."

"Okay I guess." She wraps her arm around his. "Let's get some sleep. Big day tomorrow." Percy nods and follows his wife back to their room. He quickly checks in on the kids in their room and sees that Freddy was already asleep, while Sally was pretending to sleep.

"Sally go to sleep." He hears a very fake snore. He kisses her forehead. "Good night sweetie."

"Good night daddy," he hears her whisper. He leaves the room and joins his wife in their bed and they go to sleep.

* * *

 **I know that this is coming early, but I just felt like writing. To help make up for not updating for so long, I'll also upload chap 7 on Friday since I finished it ahead of schedule.**


	8. Chapter 7

Name: Perseus "Percy" Jackson

Occupation: High School Teacher, Father, Swimmer, Hero

Alias: Oceanmaster

Date: December 20th XX24

Chapter 7: Storm

"All units check in," Percy hears Will say over the comms. He adjusts his left gauntlet as he walks towards the front of the newly repaired jump jet.

"Ventus checking in," he hears Jason say over the comms. Percy walks into the cockpit and sees Piper and Connor in the pilot and co-pilot seats respectively.

"Phoenix checking in."

"Minerva checking in." Annabeth was with Jason and Leo flying towards Galveston to reduce the weight of the jump jet.

"Speedster checking in," he hears Travis say, lots of splashing sounds happening on his end.

"Nevermore checking in," Piper says. She flips a few switches and looks at the dials of the ship. She points to something and Connor turns dial on his end. Percy looks at Piper and gives her a thumbs up which she returns. He turns around and heads back into the cargo seating of the ship.

"Quantum checking in." Percy takes his seat across from Katie, with Piper's motorcycle strapped down between them.

"Flora checking in," he hears her say, putting her hand to her left ear.

"Umber checking in," Nico says in his gravelly voice. Percy glances towards him. His eyes were green again, but Percy was worried about him because of what happened only a few hours ago.

"Oceanmaster checking in," he says tapping the comm device in his ear.

"Archangel checking in. All units accounted for."

"Sally Jackson reporting in," he hears his daughter say over the comms.

"Sally, this is for the grown ups," he hears Annabeth say.

"Aw."

"Sorry my fault. I gave her one because she was running around the medbay," he heard Will say. "Let's go over the plan again." Percy heard four people sigh.

"Jason and I will fly to the Historic Pleasure Pier and assist anybody making their stand there," Leo says.

"Connor and I will drop off our passengers and ferry people to the Argos."

"Once me and Nico are dropped off, we will help the Demi-humans get to the pier," Katie says.

"I'm running around, taking out as many mercs as I can, while protecting as many civilians as I can," Travis says.

"Annabeth and I are heading inland and getting our siblings to the pier."

"And I'm on standby for medical support. If anybody gets to critically injured, Nico or I can bring them right to the medbay," Will says, a tapping sound coming from him.

"We're at the Pier," he hears Leo says, lots of gunfire coming in. "Dropzone is hot."

"Pier 21, just north of us would be a better drop-ugh-zone for you guys," he hears Jason say. He towards the cockpit and sees Piper who looks worried. She shakes her head and focuses.

"I'm securing the area," Annabeth says. Percy looks at Katie and Nico and they all stand up. They head towards the back and Katie unlatches the motorcycle.

"You sure you know how to drive this thing?" Nico asks her.

"Sure. It's like riding a bike, but different." She gets on and starts the engine. Vines start to grow around her head, creating a helmet.

"Just don't break it," Piper says from the cockpit.

"Approaching the dropzone, opening rear door," Connor says. The cargo door of the jump jet opens and they disembark in their own ways. Nico turns into a smokey substance and flies out, expanding on the ground as he lands before reforming into his normal form. Katie drove the motorcycle out and lands on a roof before driving back down to the street. Percy waits a bit longer and jumps into the water that they pass by. He falls deep into the water, but he creates a current in the water upward, launching him out of the water onto dry land. When he lands, he sees Annabeth waving some civilians down the street. He runs up to her.

"That family is letting us use their car," she says pointing to family getting into their van. He follows her to a mid-size sedan and she gets into the driver's seat. Percy gets in the passenger's seat and Annabeth hands him her handgun.

"Rubber bullets?" he asks as he scans the area.

"Rubber in there, four spares. I've got two of regular," she says handing him a bunch of clips. She sees that she had color coordinated them, with two red clip and four blue ones. She starts the car, adjusts her mirrors and throws the car in drive. The thirty eight mile drive should have taken about forty minutes, but Annabeth manages to get them there in almost twenty, the speedometer not going under a hundred miles an hour. Luckily, Percy did not need to use the handgun and he hands it back to Annabeth. They get out of the car and run into the hotel that their siblings were hold up in. They climb the stairs, and make their way onto the fifth floor. They get to the room and Percy opens it while Annabeth watches his back. When he opens the door, he sees Matt and Bobby holding a bow and a rifle respectively, while his sister holds a stun javelin, the one that his mom hid after poked a hole in the wall. The twins look relieved and lower their weapons. Cassandra drops the javelin and gives him a hug.

"Did you guys have any trouble?" he asks looking at the twins. They were taller than the last time he had saw them. They were both somewhat fit, with black hair and brown eyes. They had very light skin but had some Asian characteristics that they got from their mother.

"No, Athena was able to get us a private jet," Matt starts.

"That let us bring as much gear as we could," Bobby finishes.

"Perc, what is happening?" his sister asks shaken. "Why are there people trying to kill us?"

"I don't know," he answers honestly. "But I'll keep you safe." Annabeth walks in and hugs her brothers.

"Let's go, we got a car," she says waving them over. She checks the hallway heads towards the stairs. Matt follows with his bow, followed by Bobby with his rifle. Percy reaches down and hands his sister the spear. She looks up and her long black hair falls from her face. Her blue eyes were the same as their mother's. She nods slightly and follows Percy out. The small group makes their way down the stairs. They exit the lobby and when they get into the parking lot, a woman stands between them and their car. She had brown hair and green eyes. Floating around her were fourteen knives.

"Looks like I found my prey," the woman says. She reaches into her pocket and pulls out some black cards and flips through them. She pulls out three and puts the rest back. "Three Jacksons ready to die." Percy pulls Cassandra behind him and raises his shield. Matt draws his bow and Bobby drops to his knees and readies his rifle. Annabeth draws her dagger with her left hand and puts it under her handgun. "I guess I should introduce myself. The name is Circe." As she says her name, all of the knives fly towards Annabeth, who dodges all of them and starts running towards her. Percy opens his tanks and draws as much water as he can out of them. Matt fires a volley of arrows at her while Bobby runs around to get a better angle. Annabeth dodges Matt's arrows narrowly enough, allowing them to almost hit Circe. She turns her attention towards the arrows and they freeze. Percy notices that when that happens all of the knives fall to the ground. She turns the arrows and they fly towards Percy. He raises his shield to cover his head and forms a wall of water at the same time. The arrows get caught in the water and stop moving. Percy had increased the density of the water making it much hard than it should be. The arrows stop trying to force their way through the water and the knives start to move again. He turns and forms a ball of water around his sister. He protects her narrowly, but feels something cut his leg. He looks down and sees that one of the knives had embedded itself into his right thigh. He drops down and he hears Cassandra and Annabeth scream. He tries to pull it out, but the knife keeps doing deeper. He thinks that he hears something about the ship under attack, but he wasn't sure. He groans and looks up as he keeps trying to pull the dagger out of his leg. He sees Annabeth and Circe fighting in hand to hand combat while Matt and Bobby dodge the flying daggers. Suddenly something changes in Annabeth, her movement become more structured, and much faster. Circe seems overwhelmed by this and Percy is actually able to pull the knife out. He looks down and sees a large pool of blood. He looks up and sees Annabeth punch Circe and she goes flying into a car, making a large dent in it. A blur shows up and Nike appears. She grabs Circe and suddenly they disappear. Percy releases the water bubble and his sister rushes over to him. Her right hand glows and she touches it to his leg. The wound starts to heal. He draws some water over and put it on the wound and it starts to heal faster. Annabeth comes over and he looks into her eyes. They were darker than they usually are. He pulls out a piece of paper and holds it against his leg. She glances at it and gives him a confused look. He shakes his head. The paper was a green piece of paper with red writing that said, "if you can read this, I know you didn't use it." The confused look on her face means that she used her Enhancer ability in that his fully heals, he stands up and washes all of the blood into the sewers. Cassandra helps him up, and his leg still stung slightly. The air blurs and he gets ready to fight. Travis appears and looks around.

"Where did she go?" He asks, panic in his voice.

"Nike? She took Circe and ran." Travis curses under his breath before looking confused.

"Wait, who's Circe?"

"Long story," Percy says. "Can we get a ride back?"

"Sure. Want me to take them to the ship?" he asks pointing to Matt, Bobby, and Cassie. The word yes wasn't even out of Percy's mouth before the three of them were gone. "Hey, so they are attacking the ship now, so can one of you come with me to defend it." Percy and Annabeth look at each other.

"I'll go," Annabeth volunteers. Percy nods and hugs her.

"I know you are using it," he whispers before he pulls away. Annabeth's eyes go wide and the gray color gets lighter. Travis grabs her and they rush off. Percy blinks once and he feels something grab him and he was suddenly somewhere in Galveston.

"Sorry dude," he hears Travis say over the comms. "They have helicopters at the ship." Percy sighs and draws his sword. He starts running down the street towards the pier. He uses his sword to strike and knockout a number of people before he runs into some familiar faces. Frank and Hazel were taking cover in a coffee shop. Hazel notices him and waves him over. He rushes into the room and sees a bloody bear on the ground, which he assumes is Frank. He looks at Hazel and sees that she was pregnant.

"Hey, is evac on the way?"

"I'll check," he says wide eyed. He taps on his communication device. "When's next evac?"

"Still have a bit, dropping off my cargo now, but there is a whole shit storm going on over here. Annabeth, get this guy off my tail," Piper shouts.

"Well I have a pregnant lady and a bear who needs to get out of here," he says looking at the two. Hazel was now sitting on the ground breathing hard. She looks up at Percy and he notices. "Scratch that, I have a bear and a lady about to give birth." He hurries over and takes her hand.

"I can't help ther-" Piper says before getting disconnected.

"Piper?" he asks, genuinely scared.

"She's fine, the antenna on the jump jet was hit by a drone," Annabeth says over the comms.

"Percy, I'm on my way," he hears Will say. Suddenly a blinding white light appears at the entrance of the building and Will appears, donning his Archangel garb. He was wearing gold armor pieces over an almost blindingly white toga. He wears gold sandals and gold wrist guards and has a white halo over his gold hair. On his back were wings made entirely of light, and similarly, he had a bow made of light. On his right thigh was a small pouch with the ends of arrows poking out. While Nico seemed to radiate fear and darkness, Will was the opposite. Percy feels hopeful, like he could take on anything. Will walks in and checks Frank's pulse and looks around the furry animal. "Well, this is certainly a first."

"Never operate on a bear before?" Hazel asks between breathes.

"I'm a human doctor, not a vet. How are you? Any contractions?" he asks walking closer to her and putting his hand on her stomach.

"Yeah, a few minutes apart," she says. Percy feels her squeeze her hand tightly, to the point where Percy thought she was going to break his hand.

"I need to get you both there. Percy, has your sister ever delivered a baby before?"

"Not that I know of."

"Cassie's there?" Hazel asks looking at Percy.

"Well, it looks like she will before today is over," Will says. He touches both Frank and Hazel. Percy let's go of her hand. "Look for stragglers," Will says before the group disappears with a flash of light.

"Never going to get used to that," Percy mumbles to himself. He starts heading towards the pier. As he runs down the streets of Texas, he comes across a small robot. It was a four legged robot, about the size of a dog, and it had a barrel on it's back. It was all black with many white lines that reminded Percy of a circuit board. It points it's cannon at Percy and raises his shield. He hears a whirring sound before a voice comes out.

"Hiya Percy," he hears a young voice come out. He squints and looks at the drone. "It's Harley. Meet unit Q43." The drone seemed to bow, as well as a robot that has four legs and no head could bow. "I'm with Rachel on the roof of the Four Points down the street from you." He looks up and sees the hotel.

"Why are you there? Shouldn't you be at the pier?"

"That's where they would look for me. Plus I need line of sight to the pier to use my drones." The Q43 turns and fires its cannon at someone. "Most have evacuated and the rest are holed up here, so let's go." Q43 charges down a street away from the hotel. Percy runs over to the hotel and uses his tanks to launch himself up onto the roof.

"Nice entrance waterboy," he hears Rachel say. Like other Diviners, Rachel was dressed in her divine beings garb. The Spirit of Delphi, her divine being, shroud her in a glowing green duster with a hood on it. Under the duster were dark green and gold scales that extended all the way to her feet, which was covered by her paint splattered high-top Converse. In her hands was an intricate green and gold sniper rifle and in a holster was a golden handgun. In her right shoe was a long paint brush that had red paint on it. She aims down her rifle and fires at another merc. Being ambidextrous, she shoots her rifle with her left hand, while she shoots handguns with her right. He had asked her about it before and she gave a very vague answer as to why she does that. "Evac on the way?" she asks turning her eye towards him despite the fact that she still has her rifle up.

"Last transport should be here soon. Apparently the Argos is being attacked."

"Great, out of the fire into another fire," Rachel says. Percy looks around and sees the rest of the people on the rooftop. Reyna, or one of Reyna's copies, was bandaging up Nyssa's arm. Dakota was drinking a liquid out of a flask, holding a grimoire in his hands. Chris was holding his son close to his chest.

"Shit," he hears Piper say over the comms. An explosion rings through his comm. "Fuck. Hey, need help." Percy looks around and sees the jump jet dodging missiles as it flies over the hotel. Hot on it's tail was a reaper drone. Harley holds his arms out and white lines come from his feet. They start to rise off of the ground and start to make the form of an anti-aircraft gun. He touches the cannon and the lines glow before the gun fires. Harley stumbles slightly and Reyna catches him. Rachel continues to shoot down the mercs with her rifles, when suddenly the scope of her rifle explodes. She screams and clutches her left eye as she falls to the ground. Percy rushes over to her and pokes his head over the ledge. In the middle of the street he sees Orion, still wearing his cowboy outfit. He was holding his revolver. He glances back down and sees blood starting to pool. He moves her hand and sees bits of glowing green glass around and most likely in her eye. He covers it again and looks at what Orion is doing. Another bullet comes whizzing by and hit the anit-aircraft gun. The gun breaks down and falls apart.

"Piper, Rachel's hit, we need evac NOW!" He says. Chris's son was now openly weeping. Another shot and Harley falls backwards clutching his left shoulder. Percy looks again and sees Orion take a bow before he is whisked away, most likely by Nike.

"I can't stop until this drone is taken care of." The ship makes another pass over the hotel. Dakota stands up fires off a lightning bolt. It looked like it was going to hit the drone, but a reflective shield seemed to dissipate the charge. Harley groans and stands again.

"No Harley, you've already hit your limit," Nyssa says. "You could die."

"Or we all can die if I don't." His eyes turn white and another, more elaborate anti-aircraft gun is summoned. It fires off a volley of shots and effectively destroys the drone. He falls onto the gun. The jump jet turns right around and it slows down as it gets close to the roof. Reyna scoops Rachel up and carries her in as the rest of the group gets into the ship. Percy hears a chopping sound rushes over to Harley. He was not looking good, blood pouring out of both his shoulder wound, and his mouth. Percy tries to grab him, but Harley pushes him off. He points outward and Percy sees a formation of attack helicopters. Harley grabs Percy's shirt and looks at him. "Go...I'm...staying…slow them…down..." Harley nods. Harley stands up and holds his arms out. As Percy turns around, four more anti-aircraft guns form and a flurry of bullets fly towards the helicopters. As he enters the ship he taps the side twice and the door starts to close. Reyna stands up and starts running towards the door. Percy grabs her and stops her from jumping out.

"No! Let go! Why?" she cries.

"It's too late, he already made them. He's doing this to protect us."

"He's a hero," Reyna says as the door close. She falls to the ground and the ship flies to the Argos.

Like Rachel had said, now they were into another fire. The Argos, which was supposed to be the safe zone for the Argonauts, was surrounded by hundreds of remote drones that was wreaking havoc on the already aging ship. Percy can make out about a dozen people on the deck fighting off mercs, who had apparently boarded by boat. As soon as the door opens, Rachel disappears, most likely grabbed by Travis to get her immediate medical attention. Percy jumps out and grabs a massive amount of water from the ocean to protect the passengers of the ship as they disembark. Dakota and Reyna stay up there with him, while the other run to a lower deck. Percy compresses the water into spikes and fires them at a number of drones that were flying around trying to sink the ship. He pulls out his shield and sword and clashes with a merc who was using a bow staff. He dodges most of the strikes and swings his sword horizontally at their torso. The strike contacts and the merc freaks out as the stunning shocks them. Percy raises his right foot and kicks them off of the ship. He turns and sees that Reyna had made five copies of herself and using any weapon she could to fight them off. Percy pulls his trident off and calls to the newest copy that forms. He throws it to her and she stabs it towards Percy. Percy turns around and sees that one of the mercs were about to stab him in the back. He nods to her and she returns it. Leo lands next to Percy and Reyna and fires his rocket launcher at one of the incoming boats.

"Good timing. Rey, I need you to man as many of the mounted guns as you can." She nods slightly and four more copies of Reyna split from her and they go running around the ship. "Where's Harley?"

"He stayed to save the jump jet." Leo doesn't have time to react as a drone falls towards them. They both jump out of the way just in time.

"Damn. I don't know how much she can take. I know you aren't supposed to do this but we need you to do the thing." Percy nods.

"Keep me covered okay?" Leo puts his rocket launcher on his back and pulls out two hammers, ready to strike anybody who comes near him. Percy looks at the sky and sees Jason and Annabeth flying around taking out as many drones as they can, but there were still so many of them. A barrage of light lances come from Dakota's hands as he casts another spell against the robots. Percy puts his hand on the ship and closes his eyes. He blocks out all sounds and focuses on the water. He feels a tug deep in his gut and he feels the wind pick up. Rain starts to fall and the winds start to spin. His eyes fly open and he feels all of his muscles contract. He feels the strain within him, trying his hardest to release as much power as he can and keep in under control at the same time. His ears start to ring. The drones start flying in more chaotic patterns and some even run into each other, unable to cope with the sudden shift in wind and rain. Black spots as he continues to concentrate on containing it. Percy looks and sees Jason flying around in a circle around the ship. He was helping Percy not let it go unstable. Percy thinks that he hears Annabeth talking, but everything is melding together. He starts to sway and his vision gets blurry. He closes his eyes and tries as hard as he can to stay awake. He was losing that fight and he falls over. He opens his eyes one more time and sees Annabeth rushing towards him as he passes out.

* * *

 **If you aren't following or favoriting my story, this is the second chapter posted this week. Be sure to read that before this one.**

 **Next Update: October 6**


	9. Chapter 8

Name: Perseus "Percy" Jackson

Occupation: High School Teacher, Father, Swimmer, Hero

Alias: Oceanmaster

Date: December 21st XX24

Chapter 8: Aftermath

When Percy opens his eyes, he is very confused as to where he was. He groans as he sits up, his whole body aches as he moves.

"Hey, slow down," he hears a voice say. He looks over and sees Cassie rushing over to him. She helps him sit up and starts to force him to drink water.

"You trying to drown me?" he asks as he puts the cup on the side table.

"We both know that you can't drown." A comfortable silence passes between the two. The door opens and he turns towards it.

"-nna see daddy. Daddy!" Freddy says running over and jumping on his bed. Sally follows suit and jumps on him too. Annabeth rushes in and kisses him before pulling him into a tight hug.

"Yay! Daddy's awake," Sally says crawling over and laying down next to him on the bed.

"Of course I am."

"You were sleeping for a long time," Freddy says. Percy looks at Annabeth.

"Seventeen hours. You were passed out for seventeen hours." He looks at her and feels guilty. Cassandra seems to get what was happening.

"Hey kids, let's go get some ice cream," She says picking the kids up. They cheer as they leave the room. Annabeth pulls the desk chair over to the bed and sits.

"I guess we should talk about us using powers we aren't supposed to," she says looking up.

"Yeah I guess we should."

"You know how dan-" they both start to say. They stop and chuckle at each other. Annabeth holds up her pinky.

"Promise you won't make a hurricane?"

"Promise you won't use Minerva?" he asks her holding his pinky up. She wraps her pinky around his and he does the same. She laughs at the childish promise and kisses him. Even though they have been married for six year, and dated for four years, he still gets giddy when she kisses him.

"Gross," he hears someone say from the door. Annabeth pulls away and Percy looks to the door. He sees Matthew and Bobby standing in the door.

"Haven't you heard of knocking?" She asks turning around.

"Not our fault," Bobby says walking in.

"You left the door open," Matthew follows. Annabeth groans at her brothers.

"What do you want?" Annabeth asks starting to get irritated.

"Piper and Jason need your help in the command center," Bobby says eating a chocolate bar.

"Oh and Leo needs Sally," Matt says opening a bag of chips.

"Why does he need Sally?" Percy asks.

"She has a Database, like me," Annabeth says.

"That would explain why she speaks Mandarin and Dragon AI."

"She also read all of my thermodynamics, engine, physics, and chemistry books. Meaning she has everything she needs to help Leo fix the ship," Annabeth says. "He said the only reason we got to Galveston when we did is because she was in the engine room pointing out all the broken things and all of the things that Leo wired incorrectly."

"Wow, does she still need to go to school because we can save some serious money," Percy asks. Annabeth glares at him. "I'm just kidding." Annabeth stands up and puts the chair away.

"I'll go see what Piper and Jason want. Stay here," she says pointing at him.

"Sure, I'll definitely do that."

"I'm serious Percy. You need rest." She walks out the door. She pokes her head in one more time before he hears her footsteps leaving.

"Dude you are so whipped," Matt says. Percy glares at them and the twins leave. Percy waits a few minutes before throwing his blanket off and getting off the bed. He's feet feel a bit wobbly as he stands up, but he figures that he will be fine as long he doesn't do anything crazy. He opens the door and looks back and forth to make sure no one was in the hallway. Percy leaves and starts making his way down to the medbay. He walks past a few open doors to room and it reminds him what they are fighting for. He sees the stair and walks down to the med bay. When he gets there, he sees six people in the medbay beds. Frank, who still had a massive bear arm, was in the bed next to Hazel's bed, their newborn baby was sleeping in its own bed next to Hazel, Nyssa was sleeping in her bed, her entire left arm covered in bandages, Travis was in his bed next to Connor, both of them have bandages on their heads, and in the back was Rachel. He walks in and sees Will, Nico, Mei, and Cassie running around helping all their patients. When he walks in, Cassie stops him.

"What are you doing here?" she says angrily. She grabs a chair and forces him to sit down.

"Cassie, I'm fine."

"No, you need rest."

"I slept for seventeen hours. I've rested plenty," he says trying to stand up.

"Passing out isn't resting. I should know," Nico says undoing Connor's bandage.

"I just want to make sure everybody is okay."

"Everybody is," Nico says, trying to subtly close off Rachel's bed from Percy's view. Percy pushes off and rounds the curtain, despite everyone's protests. He sees Rachel on the bed with her upper right arm, left hand, and her left eye covered in bandages. He stops in his tracks when he sees this.

"What happened?" Percy asks quietly.

"The shrapnel that hit her was made of Delphi's essence. I was able to remove all of it from her hands and her arms, but it repels my Divine Beings energy."

"I was able to fix it up and the bandages are there because her skin will be very sensitive because it's new skin," Cassie says.

"What about her eye?" Cassie and Will share a look.

"Her left eye suffered the most damage. The shrapnel that hit her eye was very similar to glass. While we got the big shards, the microscopic bits fused with her eye."

"Since Will's powers are from a Divine Being and Rachel's rifle was from her Divine Being, his powers can't heal her eye. They just repel each other."

"And since its fused into it, if I use my powers she'd constantly be in pain because it would be healed over." Percy goes silent and stares at her sleeping form. He sits in one of the chairs that was next to her bed.

"Why isn't she awake?" he asks taking her hand.

"Delphi, who knows when she'll wake up. Could be in a few minutes or in a few decades." Percy gently squeezes her hand. He hears someone walk in.

"Hey, is Percy in here?" he hears Piper ask. Percy squeezes Rachel's hand one more time before standing up. He walks past the curtain into Piper's field of view. Behind him, Percy sees Annabeth with a disapproving look on her face. Her arms were crossed and she was tapping her right foot.

"I tried to tell him," Cassie says. She gives him a light push and says, "Good luck", before grabbing Connor's chart and looking at some of the information. Percy smiles sheepishly and scratches the back of his head.

"Hey Wise Girl," he says cautiously. She raises and eyebrow at him. "Sorry." She sighs at him.

"I knew this would happen anyways. What was it you used to say? You can't contain the ocean."

"Well, I know someone who could," He says walking up to his wife, wrapping his arms around her. "I have a ring to prove it," he says waggling his left ring finger. She glares at him.. He leans down and tries to kiss her, but she puts her finger on his lips.

"We have other things to do," she says. "Go get Sally, we are going shopping." Percy makes a confused look.

"You do know we are somewhere in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico, right?"

"You do know that we have a jump jet, right?" she says in the same tone.

"Why are we going shopping?" Annabeth puts her hand to her head.

"Well, we have a lot of people on the ship now and not enough food. I was planning on getting supplies when we got to Galveston, but we ended up getting into a small scuffle."

"Small scuffle, sure."

"And Piper and Leo aren't allowed to buy food for us anymore." Piper huffs at this.

"Why not?" Nico asks.

"Well, Leo bought fourteen boxes do dinosaur chicken nuggets, and Piper bought four cases of beer."

"That is for everybody," Piper butts in.

"I was wondering we had so many chicken nuggets," Percy says. "I'll get Sally, she's in the engine room right?"

"Yeah, I think she's helping Leo. Not sure if that means she's a genius or if Leo is just incompetent," Nico chimes in. Percy laughs and makes his way out of the medbay and towards the engine room. When he opens the door to the engine room, he sees his daughter sitting in the middle of the room surrounded by a small pile of random parts. He looks to his right and sees a pair of legs sticking out of a small panel. He looks closely at what Sally was doing and sees that she was building something that doesn't look would attach to an engine.

"Sally, are the wire supposed to be; red, green, blue, black, yellow?"

"Yup. Red, green, blue, black, yellow, white, purple, orange, and pink," she says not looking up. She was wearing a white shirt which was now gray from oil stains, jean shorts, a small tool belt, and a construction hat. Her blonde hair was tied in two pigtails. She had a small smudge on her forehead, most likely occurring when she wiped sweat away. He glances into her tool belt and sees that it had a bunch of small screws, a few screwdrivers, a hammer, and three chocolate bar wrappers.

"Whatcha doin?" he asks his daughter, crouching to look at it.

"Hi Daddy, it's a secret," she says putting her hand to her lip.

"Percy? What brings you to _mi casa_?" Leo says trying to get out of the panel he was in. Percy walks over and grabs his legs and pulls him out. Leo's face was completely covered in black soot. He moves his goggles from his eyes to his hair, making two round circles where dirt had not touched his skin.

"I'm here to get Sally. We are heading to land."

"Getting food? Can you get more chicken nuggets?" Leo asks excited.

"Yeah chicken nuggets!" Sally chimes in. She stands up and hugs Percy's leg.

"No promises kiddo," he says patting her helmet. "Go get changed, and take a shower." She pulls off her helmet and tool belt and puts them in a small cubby hole before running towards the door. "Take a shower with water," he calls out. He hears her say aw before her running footsteps disappear. He turns back to Leo who has an eyebrow raised.

"What does that mean?" Percy leans against one of the walls.

"Well, the only power she got from me was my ability to stay dry. Sometimes when she's lazy, she hops in the shower, keeps herself dry and try to wash herself that way."

"How does tha-"

"It doesn't," Percy cuts him off. They both laugh it off. Percy looks around the engine room and sees that there was a cot in the corner of the room and a box of clothes near it.

"I've been staying here," Leo says, as if he read Percy's mind. "It doesn't feel right to stay in the room without Calypso. When I find her, then I'll move back in." Percy takes a deep breath before speaking.

"Leo, there's something I need to tell you."

"What is it?" Leo asks with a smile on his face. When he sees Percy's serious face, the smile fades.

"It's about Cal."

"What about her?" he asks, setting a wrench on the machine next to him.

"You know how most families send postcards around Christmas?" Leo nods. "Two years ago I got one from her." Leo is silent. Percy reaches into his back pocket and pulls it out. He unfolds it and shows it to Leo. It was a relatively simple postcard that said Merry Christmas. In the picture was Calypso, some guy he didn't know, and two kids, a boy and a girl. Leo looks at it and his emotions were hard to read. His eyes drop and he hands the postcard back to Percy.

"Thanks," he says. "At least I found out before she got here." He grabs his wrench and turns away from Percy to work on another machine.

"I just thought you should know," Percy says, putting his hand on his shoulder. Leo nods and starts working. Percy takes his hand back and heads to the door.

"Make sure to get Sally some chocolate bars, it's her payment for helping me," Leo says from his machine, not looking up. His voice wavered slightly as he spoke. Percy nods and walks out of the door. He heads up the stairs. He makes it up to the rooms and knocks gently on Sally and Freddy's door. He opens it and sees Freddy was taking a nap and Cassie was watching him.

"I'll watch him while you guys head out," she says. The bathroom door opens and Sally opens the door. She had changed clothes and it looks like she took a shower since there was some water on the floor. She probably used her powers dry herself off instead of using a towel.

"Are we leaving now Daddy?" She asks trying to pull her hair into a ponytail and failing. He crouches down and does it for her. She grabs her Yankees cap and puts it on, looking a lot like the pictures of Annabeth when she was young.

"Let's go get your mom," he says holding his hand out. She takes it and they walk towards the command center. When they enter, it was more chaotic than before, despite having less people in it, technically. Annabeth was sitting on one of the chairs, checking the contents of her purse, while twelve Reyna's were manning every single spot in the command center.

"You ready?" Annabeth asks.

"Yeah." She gets up and they walk onto the main deck. Jason was outside with Dakota. Dakota was using his magic to repair the ship, while Jason was flying around trying to scavenge as much as he could from the drones that crashed into the ship during the battle. Sally, who was holding both Percy and Annabeth's hands, was skipping ahead of them towards the jump jet. When she gets in, she goes to the cockpit and sits in the chair.

"I guess you got kicked out of the co-pilot's seat," Annabeth teases. Percy laughs and plops into one of the seats in the cargo hold. Percy hears the engines come to life, and they were off. They flew to Mobile, Alabama, mostly because it was the closest city to the ship. As they approach the city, Annabeth activates the reflective panels to become mostly invisible to the people on the ground. They land near the USS Alabama Memorial park and call a cab to bring them into the city. The entire car ride there, Sally stared out the window, taking in all of the sights of the city. Their cab driver was fairly quiet during the drive. When they get to the store, Annabeth and Percy keep their heads on a swivel. They weren't sure when the next attack could happen, and going out by themselves was a very risky thing to do at the moment. A risky thing that has to be done. Sally, who didn't know about any of this, was excited to be on land again. She runs around and looks at all of the food. Percy sees a crowd gathering around a TV in the store and Percy walks over. He sees that it is a news report of what had happened in Galveston, or at least a version of what had happened.

"Four killed, and many more wounded in the crossfire between Demi-humans and a currently unidentified militant group. This battle occurred in city of Galveston, Texas, yesterday afternoon. It is unclear as to which group began the battle, but it was not long before the entire city became a battleground," the newscaster says over footage of the battle. Sally and Annabeth had caught up to him and were watching the broadcast with him. "We have asked House of Representative member Neil Roe, the biggest proponent for Demi-human transparency, what his thoughts were about this conflict." The screen then showed a man who looked to be about Percy's age. "This conflict could have been avoided. The people need protection. Wherever these Demi-humans show up, conflict arises. We have been seeing it over the past week. Dozens of attacks. New York, Tampa, New Orleans, and now Galveston. These have been areas in which civilians were injured because of an attack where a Demi-human was involved." Percy glowers at the screen.

"It wasn't our fault," he heard Annabeth whisper. He looks at her and holds her hand. She turns to him and smile weakly, gently squeezing his hand.

"Meteorologists were unable to determine the cause of the freak storm that occurred for about an hour in the Gulf of Mexico, leading scientists to believe that this was the work of a Demi-human. While there is no confirmed sightings at the time, many believe that this was most likely caused by the Demi-human known as Oceanmaster." A still image of Percy when he was younger pops up. Sally looks at him and starts poking his leg.

"Daddy. Daddy. Look. It's-"

"Yes sweetie, that's Oceanmaster," he cuts her off, putting his hand on her shoulder. She looks up at him confused.

"Sweetie, let's go get some food. We'll let your Dad watch the news," Annabeth says pulling her daughter away from the TV. Sally continues to look at her father, clearly confused as to why he is pretending that he doesn't know who Oceanmaster was. Percy turns away guiltily and turns back to the TV.

"-t much is known about the identity of Oceanmaster. Many have different theories as to who this individual is, ranging from famous swimmers to ocean biologists, but no one has stepped forward as to who this individual is. While it still is a stretch to infer that this was in fact Oceanmaster, he has created small storms in the past." The screen then shows a mini hurricane surrounding Percy while he was fighting Hyperion, one of Annabeth's rogues. "This was taken XX15, when he was fighting the criminal Hyperion, who is currently imprisoned in the Demi-human Corrections and Research Institute or DCRI." Percy turns and heads deeper into the store to look for Annabeth and Sally. He finds them near the back, with Sally looking around. When she sees Percy, she rushes over and shakes his hand up and down

"Daddy, why did you pretend you don't know who you are?" she asks. It takes Percy a few seconds to understand that she was asking why he referred to Oceanmaster as a separate person.

"It's a secret. People are scared of people like Daddy and Mommy. So I have to pretend that I'm not Oceanmaster," he says quietly.

"But you're hero," she says hugging him.

"Not everybody sees us that way." He wraps his arms around his daughter and kisses the top of her head. Annabeth hugs both of them before they continue around the store. Percy looks and sees a worker, probably a college student, look at them. She looks from them to their cart before turning around and leaving. Percy ignores this and continues to get food. They ended up getting two carts worth of food. As they stood in line, Percy sees the racks of chocolate. He guides Sally to the rack and tells her to grab five chocolate bars. Sally looks arounds and grabs five different bars and drops them in the cart. Annabeth raises an eyebrow at this. "Leo said he owes her." Annabeth rolls her eyes.

"You can only have one per day okay?" Annabeth tells Sally.

"Okay," she says back. The worker that Percy saw earlier opens a register and waves them over. Percy tentatively walks over with both carts and unloads the contents on the conveyer belt. The woman looks back and forth before reaching down and placing another bag right by the others.

"Do you want to open a store card?" She asks handing Percy a folded form.

"No, I'm-"

"Please hear me out," she says looking at the sheet before looking around. Percy looks at Annabeth before accepting the form. "There are many benefits to the card," she says as she begins to scan more items. Percy opens the form and reads its content. It looked like a standard form, except it already had words written in the blanks. It read, "I overheard your conversation and put two and two together. This is a gift from me and my brother. He was in Athens seven years ago, and you saved him. I don't think you are responsible and I hope these can help." He looks up from the sheet and sees her slightly nod.

"Thank you," he says. He pulls out his wallet and pulls out his credit card. He swipes his card and gives her another thank you before leaving with their carts.

"What was that?" Annabeth asks pushing the second cart.

"Oh, you know. She wanted my number. You know I'm a stud," he says with a smile. She smiles a little before punching him in the shoulder. "I'm kidding, I'm kidding," he says trying to dodge her punches.

"Yeah, get him Mommy," Sally cheers, clearly enjoying the entertainment.

"Seriously, what was that?"

"A thank you gift," he says. Annabeth looks at the bag, then back at Percy and nods. Annabeth pulls out her phone and calls another cab, and they wait in the parking lot for the cab. A cab, that barely looked functional, pulls up.

"Jackson?" The woman inside asks. She was very old, and Percy thought she was blind. As she spoke, he noticed that she only has a single tooth.

"Uh, yes?" Percy replies.

"Been wait for your call," she says in a gravely voice, popping the trunk. To his surprise, the trunk was perfectly clean. Percy and Annabeth look at each other confused. They loads all of the groceries into the trunk and gets in the car. Despite it's outward appearance, the inside was clean. He looks at the name and sees her name is Grace Ister.

"You have been waiting for us?" Annabeth asks as she gets in. Annabeth and Percy sat on the sides, with Sally sitting in the middle.

"Of course," she says. Her voice seems to get less gravely as she speaks. He blinks a few times and the hood of the car changes into the normal yellow of a taxi rather than the gray that it looked before. "Your mother predicted you would be here and would need a ride," she says looking in the mirror at Annabeth. He looks at the mirror and sees that she was not as old as he thought outside the car. She looked to be in her late forties.

"Athena?" Percy asks.

"Grandma?" Sally asks looking around for her.

"Yes, she said you would need to Chariot of Damnation one day." She steps on the gas and starts driving. As they drive, all of the other cars seem to avoid their taxi.

"Why are they avoiding us?"

"My powers. I have the ability to alter the perception of me and my taxi."

"So that why you looked-" Percy starts to say before he stops himself.

"Why I looked like an old hag?" she finishes. "All so I can remain invisible."

"You aren't a hag. You are very pretty," Sally says, opening one of her candy bars.

"Thank you. Athena sent me because she figured you would need a vehicle to get around. And you would need anonymity and a person who wouldn't ask questions. Honestly, what would a normal taxi driver think if you load a bunch of food into their trunk before heading to a city monument." Percy and Sally both look at Annabeth.

"That is a good question," Annabeth responds. Grace drove them all the way back to the USS Alabama, sprouting trivia and road stories the entire way. Percy and Annabeth weren't very interested, but Sally was getting a kick out of it. They make their way to where the jump jet was hidden and they open up the cargo hold. They get out of the car and Percy sees the taxi as it truly was. It looked brand new, shining so bright that it looked almost gold. Percy blinks at it a few times before continuing to load the food onto the ship. Percy sees the bag that the worker gave them and sees that it's mostly canned goods, which will be useful for the ship since they don't go bad. He puts it into one of the seats and sees Sally bring in the last bag. He walks out back out to the taxi and gets ready to pay before he is stopped.

"Nobody pays for the Chariot of Damnation. Just know, when you need it, it will come." The engine turns on and as she drives away, the car starts to change back to the way it looked when they first saw it. Percy shakes his head at the somewhat ridiculous car ride that he just took and gets back into the jump jet. The ride back was mostly uneventful, until they were landing. As they approached the Argos, Percy thought they were under attack again as fireballs fly past the ship. As they get closer, he sees that Jason was flying around with targets and Leo was on the ground trying to hit them.

"What are you doing?" Percy asks as the door opens. Jason and Leo look at each other.

"Training," they say at the same time.

"Here's some strength training," Percy says handing them both bags of groceries. "Get Reyna while you're at it," he shouts at them. It takes them about twenty minutes to unload all of the food and another thirty to put it away. After they finish, Sally runs back to her room to change into her "work clothes", while Percy and Annabeth make their way down to the medbay. They stand in the doorway and look at the still sleeping Rachel.

"What should we do?" she asks him. "Does she still have any family?"

"Her dad is still alive, but you know they were never close. I think she said something about an older brother who was disowned or something, but I don't know." He sighs. He has never really felt so useless as right now. He hears his comms beep and he looks at it. He and Annabeth then walk to the command center and see most of the Argonauts were already there, looking at the big screen. On the screen was another newcast.

"Just in time," Piper says tapping a button, unmuting the broadcast.

"If you missed the live video, we have received a video from a group who is claiming to be the other entity involved in the battle of Galveston. We are going to play it back now," the newscaster said. The screen then shifted to a dark video, light only by a small candle. There was a figure sitting behind the candle, but the light did not reach their face.

"Demi-humans are the scum of this world. They are the genetic abomination who seek to destroy us. There is a saying that the villain is the hero of their own story and this is not more accurate than in this case. They call themselves heroes, they call themselves savior, but what have they done. All they have done is destroy cities, destroy lives, destroy families. They orphan children and leave men and women widows as they continue their tirade claiming to protect people. They brandish swords while claiming that they are the shield that protects the realm, as if you could call a sword a shield. We are the Demi-human Suppression Regime." The figure lights a match and for a second, a Roman Emperor's mask appears. "And we will save humanity from this threat."

* * *

 **Check out my profile for an extra chapter in the Story: Argonaut Anthology. It will not be updated as often as this story, but it will be used to convey some events that are would either a huge exposition area or a side story that doesn't really work with my 3 chapter parts.**

 **Thanks for all the follows and favorites. Please review so I can get a bit more feedback.**

 **Next Chapter: October 27th**


	10. Chapter 9

Name: Annabeth (Chase) Jackson

Occupation: High School Teacher, Mother, Author, Architect, Hero

Alias: Minerva

Date: December 28th XX24

Chapter 9: Sea

"Sorry Annabeth. As much as we'd like to join you all on the Argo, we have problems here," the blonde woman with a British accent says.

"Is it the Demi-human Suppression Regime?" Annabeth asks quietly. She glances at her sleeping husband. Annabeth looks back at the three computers in front of her. One was running a program to search for Roman Emperor's masks, the other was video chatting with Sadie, and the last was attempting to connect to Magnus.

"No, it's-" Sadie starts to say before she is interrupted by a whispering voice. "I was going to tell her Carter." More whispers come from the other side of the screen.

"Are you busy?" Annabeth asks raising an eyebrow. Sadie gets up and all that's on the screen is a bookshelf filled with tomes and various artifacts that Mages use to channel their natural power. Zia and Walt walk into frame and take a seat in front of the computer.

"Hey Annabeth," Zia says awkwardly. Annabeth hears a crashing sound, followed by bird screeches and something shattering. Walt winces as a cat yelps.

"What is happening?" Annabeth asks, very confused. Zia sighs.

"You know how those two are. They will be fine in like five minutes."

"So what was she trying to tell me?"

"Apophis is back."

"I thought you guys banished him to a shadow realm or something."

"We thought so too," Walt says fiddling with a camel charm.

"We wish we could help, but we don't know when-" An explosion cuts Zia off.

"All hands on deck. His demons are here," Annabeth hears Carter say, apparently done fighting with Sadie. Zia and Walt rush off and in a scramble, their laptop is knocked off of their table.

"We'll talk later Annabeth," she hears Sadie say off camera. A penguin walks into frame, looks at the laptop and pecks it until it turns off.

"Bad timing?" she hears from the other computer. She looks over and sees her cousin Magnus looking at her. He was standing in front of a white background.

"Decent timing," she says. "The House of Life can't meet up with us, but I was hoping you could," she says hopefully. He sighs.

"I wish we could. Loki is pissed off with the world, again, and he's trying to summon Ragnarok, again. I seriously wish he was more original."

"Is that all he knows how to do?" she asks him smiling.

"Eh, who knows." She laughs a bit too loud, and she hears Percy shift in the bed. He sits up and looks at his phone with squinting eyes. He looks up and Annabeth and yawns. She mouths sorry, and turns back to Magnus. "What was that?" he asks.

"I accidentally woke Percy up," Annabeth says glancing at her husband. He stands up and opens one of their cabinet. "You can go back to sleep," she says to Percy. He shrugs and pulls out two mugs.

"If you can't sleep, I'll stay up with you," he says kissing her on the cheek before going to their small coffee maker.

"What time is it there?" Magnus asks, looking at his watch. Annabeth looks at her watch.

"Almost 3 AM."

"Why are you up?"

"I had a lot on my mind," she says. She feels her power activate subconsciously. Hundreds of lines of information cover her eyes, all of the information that she had gathered over the past week about the Demi-human Suppression Regime.

"Maybe you should try knitting. I hear it's good at taking your mind off of things." Percy comes over and sets a mug on the desk next to her and sits in the other chair. "Hey Percy."

"Hey Mag." Magnus sits there as a sword goes flying past his head. "What was that?" Percy asks.

"Oh that was Jack."

"Your sword right?"

"Yup." Percy and Annabeth look at each other.

"Are you in a fight right now?"

"Technically yes. I'm having Jack fight while I stay behind a car." A loud growl erupts and he turns around."

"You should probably stop talking to us," Annabeth says slowly.

"Probably should. Talk to you later," he says before he turns off the video. Annabeth shakes her head at her cousin's ridiculousness. Percy takes a sip of his coffee and looks at his wife.

"What?" She asks laughing.

"Just thinking how lucky I am," he says with a smirk.

"Your wife waking you up at three in the morning is lucky?" she asks turning back to the computers. On the now free screens, she starts cross-referencing people who have bought a roman emperor's mask and who has joined the DSR facebook page.

"Eh, what is sleep for anyways? What are you up to?" he asks peering over her shoulder.

"I am researching things," she says pulling up the criminal database and cross-referencing it between the other two.

"You know you look very sexy while you are researching," he says wrapping his arms around her. She feels him kiss her neck.

"No, we can't. Unless you want another kid." she says hitting him on the head. He groans and puts his head on her shoulder.

"So you mean?"

"If we do it now, there is an increased chance. Do you really want to risk it?" she asks, raising her eyebrow at him.

"Let's not. They would outnumber us at that point," he says sitting down. She kisses him before turning back to the computer. "What are you looking up?"

"Who is behind the DSR mask?" she says activating her power. All the names on the screens start to imbed themselves into her mind, adding to the names that were already in there. She presses her fingers to her temples as she gets a small headache.

"Too much stuff in there?" Percy asks. She glares at him. One of the computers chimes and she looks at it. Thalia had sent her a message, telling her where to anchor the Argos. "Is that Thalia?" he says leaning over.

"She is just letting us know where to dock the Argos and the path that we need to take to get to their base." Percy is silent, something that he usually isn't.

"Have you heard from Cal?" he asks leaning forward. Annabeth's fingers stop moving. She looks at him and sees that he has a guilty look. She turns back to the computer to finish her reply.

"No, I haven't," she says quietly. "Do you feel guilty for telling Leo?" He sighs.

"A bit. I mean that he deserves to know, but I feel bad for telling him when there is so much going on."

"You want me to talk to him?" she asks turning in her chair. Percy nods. She stands up and grabs her untouched coffee mug.

"I'll work on your research project while you do that," he says taking her seat. She pats his shoulder before heading toward the door. She turns before she fully leaves the room.

"Percy," she calls out. He turns to look at her. "You look sexy researching," she giggles out as she leaves. As soon as she closes the door, she hears a door down the hall open. She looks and sees Piper sneaking out of Jason's room. Her hair was out of it's usual braid and much messier than normal. Her shirt was inside out and she was holding her jacket, her boots, and her bra in one hand. Piper and Annabeth lock eyes. Piper's eyes dart between Jason's door and Annabeth.

"You didn't see this," she says walking towards her room. Annabeth looks at her coffee and offers it. Piper grabs it with her free hand and says, "I didn't take this either."

"Leave it by my door," she says as Piper enters her room. Annabeth shakes her head and heads deeper into the ship. As she passes the medbay, she sees Rachel was awake, as well as her daughter.

"Sally, what are you doing up?" she asks crossing her arms. Sally looks over to her and runs over.

"I'm going to help Mr. Leo, but I saw she was awake. She's going to draw me when I grow up!" she says excited. Annabeth makes a confused look and walks over to Rachel.

"Hey Annabeth, I'm almost done," she says. Rachel had changed out of her hospital gown, much to Will's displeasure, and was wearing a "green" t-shirt and jeans. Her shirt wasn't exactly green as it was plastered with hundreds of paint splats, making it barely a green shirt. She has a black eye patch covering her left eye, and her right eye was glowing green with Delphi's power. She was using colored pencils to draw a figure in her sketchbook. Annabeth looks at the drawing and sees that the drawing looked a lot like Annabeth when she was sixteen. The main difference was the green eyes and the braided hair, something that Annabeth never did. In the drawing, she was wearing a small, blue sailor's hat, a gray earpiece, a light blue button up shirt that is tucked in, a dark blue tie, black pants, and black boots. On the button up shirt was a small tag that said Pvt Jackson. She had a bronze dagger on her waist, a small handgun holster on her right thigh, a sword on her back, and a shield on her left forearm. It looks like she was doing some sort of flip with her handgun in her right hand, ready to shoot someone. She had a smirk on her face, the same one that Percy has, and was winking with her left eye.

"Is that?" Annabeth asks in disbelief. Rachel finishes coloring the hat and sets her pencil down. When she sets the sketchbook down, her right eye stops glowing.

"That's what I saw," Rachel says. She smiles and shows the picture to Sally.

"Wow, I look just like Mommy," Sally says in awe. Rachel quickly signs the picture and rips it out. She hands it to Sally who is wide eyed. "I can have this?"

"Of course, it's you isn't it?" Sally looks at the paper and then gives Rachel a hug.

"I want to show Freddy," she says running towards the exit.

"What do you say?" Annabeth asks her daughter. Sally turns around without slowing down, effectively running backwards.

"Thank you," she says before she runs up the stairs. Annabeth and Rachel laugh.

"She is exactly like Percy when I first met him," Rachel says. This stung Annabeth slightly, another reminder that Percy and Rachel knew each other longer than she knew him. She quickly shook it off and returned her attention to Rachel. Rachel glances around before opening her sketchbook. "There is something you need to see."

"What is it?" Annabeth asks looking at the sketch book. Rachel flips through the book before landing on a picture. Annabeth looks and sees that the drawing was a picture of ten people walking down a hallway. The hallway looked one of the hallways of the Argos. Annabeth sees the older Sally, walking with a group of people who she did not know. To her right was a boy who looked similar to Percy, but he had longer hair and gray eyes. He was wearing a hoodie on top of a uniform that was similar to Sally's. At his feet were two wolves that were fairly transparent. To his right was a Chinese girl who had mechanical wings and a harness on top of the uniform that they all wore. Next to Sally's left was a boy who looked to be of Hispanic descent. He had a short haircut and carried a war hammer. Next to the boy was Cassandra. She looked to be in her twenties, on her right arm was a small arm band with red cross symbol and a green sword. Next to her was a girl in her twenties that looked similar to Rachel, but wasn't quiet her. On her arm was a armband with a green sword on it, similar to the one that Cassie was wearing. Next to her was a girl and a boy who looked to be a few years younger than Sally did. They looked related to each other, both having brown hair and piercing blue eyes. Next to them was a girl who looked to be of Japanese descent. She was holding onto a necklace and was punching the boy next to her, who looked a lot like Frank.

"This is the future," Rachel says simply. She points at the girl who looks like her. "This is my niece, the next person to channel the powers of Delphi."

"Is that Freddy?" Annabeth asks pointing to the boy next to the Chinese girl.

"I think so and I'm pretty sure she is Mei."

"Who are these other kids?"

"Frank Jr?" Rachel guesses pointing to the boy being punched. "Other than that I'm drawing blanks." Annabeth takes a breath.

"Are the in the military? Look at their uniforms," She says pointing. "The other picture, the one you just drew. It said Pvt Jackson. Does that mean Demi-humans are conscripted?"

"I don't know."

"Or are we doing this of our own free will?"

"I don't know."

"What if there is some war and they happen to be in the army."

"Annabeth," Rachel says putting her hand on hers. "It's the future. We don't know what it holds."

"But-"

"I don't have the answers," Rachel says cutting her off. "Delphi only gives me a small glimpse of the future. There are only two demi-humans who could give you the answer. Er, one demi-human and he just pops up randomly since we beat Kronos all those years ago." Annabeth's thoughts start to drift towards Luke, wondering where he is. "Anyways, what are you doing here?" Rachel asks.

"I came to talk to Leo," she says.

"I'll let you go, I'm getting a bit hungry," Rachel says standing up, somewhat shaky as she stands. She holds her left hand outward and uses it to prevent her from hitting the other bed. She turns her head slightly to the left to compensate for the lack of left peripheral vision. She bumps into a small table and stumbles. Annabeth reaches out, but Rachel waves her away. "No, I need to get used to it."

"Are you sure?"

"I'm fine, I just need practice." With that, Rachel walks out of the room slowly and makes her way up the stairs. Annabeth looks at the empty bed and then goes down to the engine room. She climbs the stairs down to the engine room door and opens it. As she opens it, she hears Leo scramble.

"I swear it's a comic book," he shouts as he puts something into a panel and slams it shut. He pulls out a black wrench and tightens a nut before turning. "Oh, it's you Annabeth."

"What was that?" she asks, pointing at the panel. Leo looks at that, then turns back to Annabeth.

"That is an electrical panel," he says pointing to a sticker. "See, dangerous."

"Then why did you put a 'comic book' in there?" she asks crossing her arms.

"Um. It's a good insulator?" he says, his pitch getting higher as he speaks. She raises an eyebrow.

"It wasn't a comic book was it?"

"Sure it was."

"What was it Valdez?"

"I told you it was a com-

"What is it?" she says tapping her foot.

"Porn?" he says, trying to see if it would convince her enough to not look. She narrows her eyes at him. He sighs and pulls out a black wrench. He holds it out for her and takes a step back. She takes it and uses the wrench to open the panel. The opening of the wrench was very deformed, to the point that it would not be able to open any other panel besides this one. She opens it and hands the wench back to Leo. She opens it slowly, in case he wasn't lying the second time. It turns out he was lying. Inside the empty panel was a small velvet box and a picture. She picks up the picture and sees that it was a picture of Calypso and Leo in Paris, on top of the Eiffel Tower. She puts the picture down and grabs the box. She looks at Leo before opening it. Inside was a somewhat simple engagement ring.

"You were going to propose?" she asks closing the box and putting it back. Leo nods before sitting on his cot. "When?"

"Too many times," he says leaning against a wall. "San Francisco, New York, Spain, Rome, Paris, Berlin, before the Battle of Athens, during the Battle of Athens, After the Battle of Athens. I just chickened out too many times...and now it's too late," he says punching his leg. "Right now I have no idea what I will do when I see her. If I see her."

"You can't talk like that," she says closing the panel.

"I can. We have proof that we aren't invincible. We aren't the 'gods among us' that the journalists say we are. We lost so many people already. Silena, Beck, Harley." Tears start to form in Leo's eyes. He wipes his eyes and pulls his legs up to his chest.

"We are trying. The DSR just wants us to give up. We can't give up." Annabeth sits on the bed next to him and puts her arm around him.

"DSR, how are people voluntarily joining a group calling themselves a regime? They are even freaking the criminal Demi-humans."

"Is that why Medea called you guys out?" she asks. Three days ago, Leo, Jason, and Piper went out on a mission to fight Medea, and they came back looking exhausted.

"Medea is Medea. She makes no sense with her crimes. Did I tell you about the time she held up a jewelry store and took hostages?" Annabeth shakes her head. "When the comes came and asked for her demands, all she wanted was a date with Jason. She is certifiably insane."

"What did she want then?"

"She wanted to make sure Jason was safe. Then she tried to 'mate' with him to 'ensure that at least a part of him will survive this'." He shudders. "It was so creepy." Annabeth and him laugh for a bit. Leo looks at his wrist before pulling a standard Argonaut comm device. "Where is Sally? She told me she would be here early."

"Knowing her, she probably was so happy about Rachel's picture that she made her draw more pictures of the future."

"Pictures of the future?" Leo says bringing his legs down.

"Rachel saw what Sally and a bunch of other kids look like years in the future. They are all wearing some sort of uniform," Annabeth says standing up.

"Huh, wonder what that means." He looks at his wrist again before turning back to the comm device.

"What happened to your fancy watch?" He looks at his wrist before looking back at her.

"Oh, I gave it to a...uh friend. In case she needs to contact me."

"She?" Annabeth asks. Before Leo could respond, his comm device beeps. He looks down at it and all emotions falls from his face. "What's wrong?" she asks. He blinks a few times before he looks at her.

"That was my friend. Her dad, the guy I went to Tampa for, he just died." He drops the comm device onto the bed and he stands up. He grabs his tool belt and starts working.

"What are you doing?"

"Working. I need to clear my head," he says in a panicked voice. She puts a hand on his shoulder and stops him.

"You need to rest and process this."

"I can't. If I do then it becomes real and…" he trails off. He was fully crying now. Annabeth pulls him into a hug and he cries into her pajamas. One of the computers light up and Festus's dragon face pops up. He whirs and clicks before disappearing. Leo let's go and wipes his face. "We are at Thalia's location." He turns to leave before Annabeth stops him.

"Sit this one out, okay?" Leo thinks for a few minutes before nodding. "Get some sleep."

"Sure," he says crawling onto his bed and curling up. Annabeth looks back at him one more time before leaving. She climbs the many steps of the ship back into her and Percy's room. She sees her mug on the ground outside of the door. She picks it up and enters the room. When she opens it, she sees that he had fallen asleep at the desk, all three computers still running. She shakes her head and grabs the blanket off the bed and put it on him. She changes out of her pajamas and head up to the command center. When she gets there, she sees Reyna, Rachel, Cassie, Matt, Bobby, Jason, and Piper. She raises an eyebrow at Piper show turns slightly red before looking away from her. She accidentally lock eyes with Jason and she turns again.

"We're here?" Annabeth asks.

"Yeah, here in Brazil at the buttcrack of dawn," Reyna says. Reyna was tossing a knife in the air and catching it by the blade.

"Speaking of which what are you three doing up?" she asks Matt, Bobby, and Cassie.

"Well Cassie wanted to work out," Bobby says.

"And we have to follow her because we are her bodyguards," Matt says, quickly glancing at Cassie. She rolls her eyes.

"I was going to use the treadmill, but I saw the sign that said, 'anybody using the training room before 5 am will be set on fire, then stuffed into a punching bag'," she explains.

"Oh yeah, that was Thalia's sign. Her room is above it and she would chase people who tried to work out while she was sleeping," Rachel explains, drawing something in her sketchbook, her right eye glowing green. She blinks twice and the glowing stops. She sets her pencil down and closes her notebook. "Who is going?"

"I'll go," Jason and Piper volunteer. They look at each other before turning away.

"I'm in," she hears Percy say behind her. She turns and sees that he still had the blanket on his back, and he still had not changed out of his pajamas. "I'm gonna go change," he says realizing what he was wearing.

"Sure, why not?" Reyna said catching her knife. "It'll give me something to do other than be Leo's work force."

"Where is Valdez?" Piper asks.

"Not feeling well," Annabeth replies.

"I want to go," Cassie says raising her hand.

"If she's going, we're going," Bobby says, with Matt nodding in approval.

"Nope, you three are staying on the ship," Annabeth says lowering Cassie's hand. The trio grumble and leave the command center. "Rach?" Rachel looks up.

"Uh, sure," she says a bit nervous.

"I didn't mean to put you on the spot," Annabeth says.

"No, I need to get used to things," Rachel says. She is engulfed in green light, and then she was in her Oracle garb. She makes her normal rifle, before dispersing it. "Guess I can't use that anymore." She holds her right hand out and a glowing green machine pistol is created. She holds it up and looks down the sight with her right eye.

"So, the five of us plus Percy can go," Piper says pushing off of the wall that she was leaning against.

"Yeah. How is your Portuguese?" she asks Piper.

"Uh, it's pretty rusty, even though it wasn't great to begin with."

"Great, does anybody speak Portuguese?" she asks the room. Everybody else shakes their heads. "How are we going to talk to the locals now?" she asks. She thinks for a moment until she came to a solution. She looks up and sees Piper is making a similar face.

"Are you thinking of the same person I am?" Piper asks her.

"Do you think she can?" she asks Piper.

"She speaks Chinese and Festus, how could Sally not speak Portuguese?" Annabeth shrugs. She pulls up a few recorded phrases of Portuguese and downloads them to her comm device.

"Let's find out," she says heading to her daughter's room. She makes her way down the stairs and knocks on her children's door before entering. She opens it and sees Freddy, still sleeping in his bed next to the water wolf, and Sally was laying on the floor snoring. The picture of what she looks like in the future was hanging above her, leading Annabeth to think that she hung the picture then was too stubborn to sleep in her own bed. She gently shakes her daughter awake.

"Mommy?" she asks very groggy. She rubs her eyes and tries to roll over. "I don't want to go to school today," she mumbles, going back to school.

"Sweetie, you aren't going to school," she says stroking her hair. Sally rolls over and sits up. She scratches her head and raises an eyebrow to Annabeth. Annabeth pokes her on the nose and laughs as she wiggles her nose.

"What is it Mommy?" She wipes her mouth, most likely making sure she didn't drool in her sleep. Annabeth pulls out her comm device.

"Do you know what this says?" Annabeth then plays the recording. _Bem vindo ao Brasil_ , plays.

"Welcome to Brazil?" Annabeth checks the translation and plays the second recording. _nós não falamos seu idioma, você pode falar inglês?_ "I speak English," she says confused. "You played it in English."

"No it wasn't," Annabeth says.

"Yes it was." Annabeth was going to argue more, but decide that she wouldn't be able to beat a five year old.

"Well, do you want to see a rainforest?" Her daughter's eyes lit up.

"A rainforest? Will we see monkeys?"

"Um, maybe," she says, trying to not to get her hopes up.

"Yay, monkeys!" she shouts. Annabeth lays some clothes out for her daughter as she wakes her brother up. She leaves the room to let her daughter change and bumps into Percy. He had changed into a shirt and jeans.

"Armory?" he asks holding his arm out.

"Of course," she says taking his arm. She leans her head on his shoulder as they make their way down to the armory. When they enter, they see Jason putting his Ventus suit on, with Reyna sitting on the bench talking to him. She was already wearing her armor over the toga and had her distinct purple cloak pinned on. She had a roman legionary helmet next to her, it now modified to cover her face a bit more.

"-ill don't get why you are acting weird. It's not like the first time that you guys have done it," Reyna says twirling one of her knives.

"It's the first time since we've broken up. Not to mention that before that, she tries to avoid me unless we are stuck together." Jason says trying to find the head hole of his suit.

"Didn't you guys go fishing like a week ago?" Annabeth asks as they enter. Jason turns to look at her.

"We sat there for three hours not talking. She spent the entire time drinking. I'm pretty sure the only reason she was there was because you told her to. She didn't say a word until Percy jumped off the ship."

"Wait, back and Jason hooked up?" Percy asks.

"Apparently it doesn't mean anything," Reyna says putting the knife into her right boot.

"Does it not mean anything? The command center was pretty awkward this morning," Annabeth says walking around to the girls side of the armory. She opens her locker and sees all of her equipment.

"She said it doesn't mean anything. She just needed to...let off some steam," Jason says.

"Yeah, when did this happen?" Percy asks, still somewhat clueless. Annabeth snorts as she zips up her jumpsuit. She grabs her cape and attaches it to her suit. She puts her weapons in her sheaths and holsters and adjust her boots. She was about to close the door to the locker when she sees an old picture. She picks it up and has a sad smile.

"I don't want to talk about this anymore," Jason says. She hears his footsteps leave the room.

"But this is the most interesting thing happening on the ship right now," Reyna cries as she chases him down. Annabeth looks back at the picture. It was a picture of the original team that they had in Manhattan, before the Argonauts was formed. They called themselves the Pantheon. The picture was taken eleven years ago, before her and Percy even started dating. Annabeth was only fifteen at the time. It was a picture of her, Percy, Rachel, Thalia, Calypso, Nico, Will, Larry, and Luke. She touches the place where Luke was and wondered where he was, or when he was to be more accurate. She hears footsteps and she throws the picture inside and closes the locker.

"You decent?" Percy says 'covering' his eyes. While his hand was over his face, there was a space for his eyes to see.

"Perv," Annabeth says while throwing her gloves at him. He laughs and catches them easily. He hands her her gloves and she puts them on. She puts her mask and scanner on and was ready to go. She looks at him and sees that he was still wearing the hoodie from when he was younger. "You are going into the Amazon in a sweater?"

"You're going to wear a cape, why can't I wear a sweater?"

"Aren't you going to be hot?" she asks as they head to the exit.

"I'm always hot." She punches him in the arm. "Well, I'll let you in on a secret. I keep a thin layer of seawater on my skin underneath the hoodie, to keep me cool no matter what temperature."

"Wait. If you get hot, why do you wear a hoodie?"

"We have be married for six years, dated for four before that, and superheroed together for three years before that and you are just now asking me that?"

"I didn't think of it till then," she admits. Percy grins.

"It is a psychological blow. People are too busy wondering how I am wearing a sweater that they get distracted in fights." She raises her eyebrows at him.

"Seriously, that's the reason?"

"Yup."

"You are an idiot," she says in a playful manner.

"Yeah, I'm an idiot." He reaches over and puts his arm around her. "But, I'm your idiot." She shakes her head, but smiles all the same. They make their way up to the main deck where the jump jet was parked. She sees Sally was standing at the opening of the ship with a backpack and the hard hat that Leo gave her. She sees her parents and she starts to wave. As they get closer she salutes to them.

"Chief Transrator Sally Jackson, reporting for duty."

"Translator," Annabeth corrects.

"Translator," Sally repeats, putting a lot of emphasis on the L. "Can you fix my hair?" she asks taking her helmet off. Sally had tried to pull her hair into a ponytail, like Annabeth tends to do, but she missed a large chunk and the headband was much too loose. Annabeth pulls the band out, fixes her daughter's hair. She crouches down and turns her around to face her.

"Okay. We are going into a very scary place, so you have listen to Mommy and Daddy very carefully okay." Sally nods. "If we tell you to run away, we need you to run away." She nods again. "Good." Annabeth takes her hard hat and puts it back on her head. "Let's go. Adventure awaits." Sally smiles and runs into the ship. Piper and Rachel were in the cockpit, Jason and Reyna were sitting next to each other on one side of the jump jet, and Percy and Sally were sitting on the other. Annabeth takes a seat next to Sally and she feels her take her hand. Annabeth gently squeezes her hand as the ship flies off of the ship towards the large trees of the Amazon.

* * *

 **A bit later in the day than normal, but I blame Fire Emblem Warriors.**

 **Next Update: November 17th**


	11. Chapter 10

Name: Annabeth (Chase) Jackson

Occupation: High School Teacher, Mother, Author, Architect, Hero

Alias: Minerva

Date: December 28th XX24

Chapter 10: Land

Annabeth watches her daughter open her backpack and pull out a candy bar before they leave the ship. She notices that her backpack was very large, despite this supposed to being a rather quick trip.

"Sweetie, what did you bring in your backpack?" Percy ask, curious as well. Sally stops mid bite to look at her father. She sets the candybar out and starts to dig into the backpack.

"Candy Bars, water, soda, chips." These made sense to Annabeth. "A water filter, a jar to keep stuff that I find, a magnifying glass." Annabeth looks and sees that the water filter that she brought was one from a fridge, so it wouldn't exactly help in that sense. "A book, some rope, some screws, some wires, a wire cutter, a screwdriver." She raises an eyebrow at these. "Bear spray, bug spray, some metal rings, glue, and tape."

"Most of that doesn't make sense," Percy says scratching his head. "I'm pretty sure there aren't bears in South America." Sally cocks her head to the side. Annabeth looks into the backpack.

"Isn't it heavy?" she asks her daughter.

"Yeah."

"Why don't we leave some stuff on the ship?" she offers. Sally nods and hands the bag to Annabeth. Annabeth takes out the bear spray, the book, a full sandwich bag full of screws out, a similar size bag of wires, the wire cutters, fourteen keyrings, the water filter, the screwdriver, the glue and eight of the twelve water bottles that she had. Annabeth leaves them on the floor of the ship as they rejoin the rest of the group. Rachel was holding her new weapon in her right hand and was scanning the area with Piper, who was using her heavy crossbow. Jason was in a tree looking around. As they walk up, the rest of them group up. All of Reyna's clones dissipate and remerge with her.

"So where are we going?" Piper asks.

"Thalia said that the closest village will be able to help us. Her squad's base is apparently so camouflaged that you can only find it if you know what you are looking for, so she will come to that village."

"That's where the munchkin comes in," Piper says tapping on Sally's helmet. She squints her eyes at Piper before sticking her tongue out at her.

"How far is this village?" Jason asks.

"It's about a two hour walk," Reyna says putting her map away. "Maybe an hour and a half if we rush, but who knows if the DSR followed us here."

"We'll take it slow, there could be other things out here who don't want us here," Percy says pulling his sword and shield out. Annabeth nods and pulls her gun out. She pulls the magazine out and replaces it with live rounds.

"I'll scout ahead," Reyna says, splitting in two. One runs ahead while the other pulls out her sword. They begin making their way inland, towards the village that Thalia mentioned. Reyna was in the front making a path for the rest of them, with Jason floating high to keep an eye on the other Reyna. Annabeth keeps Sally close to her, taking a spot near the front to set the pace. Annabeth hears something hit the ground and she whips around behind her. She lowers her weapon when she sees that Rachel had just tripped on a small root on her left side. She pushes herself up and dusts her pants off.

"You wanna hold my hand?" Percy says with a smile, reaching out to her.. Annabeth grits her teeth at this. Rachel narrows her eye at him.

"Give me your shoulder," she says placing her left hand on his right shoulder. Annabeth turns around and they begin to march. Sally was having fun with all of the different sights. She took possibly hundreds of pictures of various animals and trees by the time they go to the secluded village. The village was in a small clearing in the rainforest. There were about twenty small huts there and once the group entered the clearing, they were the center of attention. There were not many occupants in the village, only around forty people. The stare-off last a few minutes before a villager spoke. They spoke pretty quickly in Portuguese. Annabeth gently nudged her daughter who looked at her before responding. Sally seemed to explain what was going on before introducing everyone. She points to everybody as she says their name, stopping at Reyna. She turns to Annabeth and gestures for her to come down.

"What's her name?" she asks whispering, pointing at Reyna.

"Reyna." Sally turns around back to the villager.

" _Raiha_ ," she says pointing at Reyna.

"Wait what did you call her?" she asks her daughter.

"Her name, Queen," she says tilting her head. Annabeth opens her mouth, but closes it. She knows that no matter how she says it, Sally would most likely hear it at Queen because it is being translated in her head. The villager that she was talking to speaks again and seems to welcome them into the village.

"What did he say?"

"He said you can wait here for the Sky Princess, whoever that is." One girl walks up to Sally and speaks to her, pointing at a small group of children. Sally nods and hands her mom her backpack. "I'm gonna go play with them," she says running off. She chuckles and shakes her head at her daughter. The kids all go running off together. A boy, who looked to be about sixteen, approaches the adults of the group.

"Hello. Sally says you English," he says, somewhat struggling.

"We speak English," Piper says speaking somewhat slowly. He nods.

"Water and food," he says pointing to one of the larger huts. He nods once more before going back to the other villagers.

"I guess we can get something to drink there," Rachel says.

"You guys go ahead, I'll keep an eye out," Annabeth says.

"I'll stay with you," Percy says standing next to her. The rest of them nod and enter the hut. "Did you think that this is what we would be doing on our winter break?" he asks leaning on his trident.

"Definitely did not think that we would be going to South America. At least it beats grading midterms," she says resting her head on his shoulder. He smiles down at her

"Well, as long as you're here, everything will be alright." They look up and see a few of the teenagers carrying buckets of water from the forest. "I'll be right back. I'm gonna go give them a hand," he says with a wink. He puts his trident back on his back and jogs off. She watches him pulls the water from the buckets and bring it into a small trough. They then bring him into the forest, most likely to have him help bring water.

"Well isn't that a sight, Percy being a hero," a man's voice says from behind her. She froze at the sound of his voice, she recognized that voice. She slowly turns around and sees Luke, looking exactly the same as the last time she saw him. He was leaning against a tree, his bronze and steel sword at his belt.

"Luke?" she whispers.

"Hey Annie, it's been a while," he says with a smirk. She feels her hand start to shake. "Well, a while for you. For me it's only been a few hours."

"What are you-"

"What am I doing here? Can't I just be here to see you?"

"You never go anywhere without a reason," she says looking around.

"It's not exactly like I have much of a choice. I have to just go where I'm brought."

"You still haven't answered the question," she counters. She turns and faces him. He was still eighteen years-old, the same age he was when they stopped Kronos.

"I'm here to make sure Thals is safe, by warning you."

"Warning me of what?"

"You'll know why soon," he says somewhat cryptically.

"Tell me." He raises an eyebrow.

"Where the fun in that?" He pushes off the tree and takes a few steps towards her. She instinctively takes one step back. He draws his sword and smirks.

"What are you-" she starts to say before she is cut off.

"LUKE!" Annabeth hears from across the village. She turns and sees Percy holding two buckets of water. He drops the bucket and draws his sword. He runs towards them and his and Luke's blades clash.

"Percy," she cries, trying to get his attention. Percy growls and ignores her. His eyes were filled with pure hatred.

"Come on Jackson, is that all ya got?" Luke say taunting him, easily parrying all of Percy's attacks. Percy pushes with his sword and kicks Luke in the chest. Luke gets hit and falls to the ground, but jumps back up and swings his sword at Percy's head. Percy opens his shield and blocks the strike.

"That's enough you two," she say trying to get them from killing each other. They ignore her and continue to battle. Now utilizing his shield, Percy seems to be getting the upper hand with his somewhat unorthodox fighting style, using the shield as a way of breaking Luke's guard and knocking his sword away rather than using it to block attacks. Percy bashes at Luke's sword, and it flies away, getting stuck in one of the huts. Percy points his sword at Luke's throat, breathing heavily as he does.. Luke smirks as he raises his arms. He reaches behind him and pulls out a dagger and knocks Percy's blade away.

"Out of breath Jackson?" Luke taunts.

"Still have enough energy to get rid of you," he snaps. Annabeth has not seen Percy so angry before. He and Luke clash blades again, dancing around many of the huts in the village. Annabeth looks over and sees many of the villagers were huddling up, trying to stay out of their way. Jason and Reyna had confused looks on their faces, while Rachel grimaces and Piper has her hands on her crossbows. She looks back and sees Luke throw his dagger at Percy and the blade cuts his arm, not deeply but just enough to draw blood. They fought around the village and ended up right next to Luke's sword. He pulls it out and the two clash blades again.

"Enough!" She shouts. She quickly loads rubber bullets and fires two shots at each of them. Percy whips around and they stare at each other. Luke shrugs and puts his sword away.

"Well, that was fun. I did my part. Au revoir," he says as he starts to fade out of existence. Percy collapses his shield and puts his sword into its sheath. Annabeth gives him a look that says 'we'll talk about this later'. He looks down. Piper comes over and holds up some gauze and starts to bandage his arm.

"Mommy?" she hears a voice say. She turns and sees Sally looking up at her scared. "Why was Daddy fighting that man? Who was he? Where did he go?" she asks frantically. Annebeth reaches down and hugs her tightly.

"Don't worry, he's gone now. I'll...I'll tell you more about him when you're older okay?" Sally looks up and nods. "Can you tell the villagers that everything is okay now?" Sally nods and starts walking to the others, looking back every once in awhile as she does. Annabeth starts walking towards Percy, when a crash in the trees behind her interrupts her. She whips around and points her gun at three figures, two adults and a child. They two adults were both women holding bows with masks covering their faces

"Told you the village was here," One says looking around. She lowering her bow and placing the arrow and puts it back in the quiver.

"Fuck off Tanaka," The other says also lowering her bow. She reaches up and pulls off her mask revealing a pale freckled face with piercing blue eyes. She had messy shoulder length hair, which looks like it was cut with a knife without a mirror She was wearing black lipstick. "Hey Annie, where are the bad guys?" she asks looking around.

"Doesn't look like there are any," the other woman says. She pulls off her mask and reveals a gorgeous Asian woman. Her hair, despite being in a full mask, was in perfect still in perfect condition. It was hard to get much more out of that as her powers cause others to see her differently. "Hey blondie," she says pulling out a stick of gum.

"Don't call me blondie," Annabeth says through gritted teeth. "What are you and Drew doing together? You hated each other." They start to walk towards the rest of the group. The little girl was hiding behind Drew.

"That didn't change. But she was assigned to my squad as a temporarily as part of her photoshoot," Thalia explains.

"Photoshoot?" she asks confused.

"She's a model," Piper explains.

"McLean, I'm happy to see your alive. I would love to debut your next catalogue if we finish with this whole ordeal before fashion week," Drew says brushing a hair out of her face.

"Over my dead body," Piper replies tightening Percy's bandage, causing him to wince.

"The world does think you are dead," she says smiling. Piper reaches for her crossbow, but Jason stops her.

"Who's that?" Reyna asks, gesturing to the girl behind her. Drew perks up and tries to show the girl, but she refuses to come out from behind her. Drew holds a finger up and turns around.

"Do you want your ring?" she asks, almost a whisper. Annabeth sees the girl nod. Drew takes off her necklace and puts it around the young girl. She clutches the ring in her small hand, and almost immediately, she seems more confident. "Better?" The girl nods. Drew gets out of the way to show the rest of the group the girl. "This is my daughter, Noire."

"Did you say daughter?" Percy asks.

"Yes, daughter." Noire looks up at everybody. She looked similar to Drew, or what Drew normally looks like. Annabeth looks at Thalia is confusion.

"Don't look at me, I was just as confused. Especially since she brought her to a military base."

"We needed a safe place until we could get to the Argos," Drew explains. "Speaking of which, where is the airship? Shouldn't Leo drop a ladder from the sky?"

"Flight core is too damaged, and Harley...isn't with us," Jason explains.

"So we are hiking?" Drew asks.

"Yeah, let's go," Reyna says. Annabeth reaches for her radio.

"Come in Argos," she says into her comm device.

"We read you Annabeth," Connor says.

"We just met up with Huntress and Diva, we are heading back." There was a clattering on the other end of the line.

"Drew is there?" he asks.

"Yeah. We can talk about it later."

"Uh, sure. Sure." The line goes dead and Annabeth puts the device away. She quickly call Sally over and they start to make their way back. The events at the village created a somewhat awkward tone among the group as they are making the trek back towards the ship. Sally was holding both Annabeth and Percy's hands as they walked into the forest.

"Hey Sally, can you help Rachel? She might need your help," Annabeth says to her daughter. She glances at Rachel who seems to understand why.

"Can you hold my hand and stay on my left?" Rachel asks holding her hand out. Sally nods quickly and grabs Rachel's hand. Annabeth puts her hand on Percy's shoulder, and the two of them slow their pace.

"You wanna talk about what happened?" she asks him.

"Not really," he says turning away from her slightly.

"We are going to talk about this. Why did you blow up at Luke?"

"When was the last time he...visited you?" he asks suddenly. Annabeth was a bit confused at this statement.

"Sally's second birthday, I think. Yeah, it was. He showed up on the beach with that massive bear," she says picturing the memory. They walk for a few more feet in silence.

"You told me your Database power can cause you to perfectly imagine events, no matter how impossible they are, right?" She nods at this. "Have you ever seen me with another woman?" Annabeth stops dead in her tracks. She swallows before she speaks.

"Yes, anytime you are with Rachel," she quietly admits. She tries her hardest to push the thoughts from her mind before they take it over again. It hurt her so much to see this, even if she knew it wasn't possible. To her mind it was real.

"The last time I saw Luke was the day after Freddy was born." Her head snaps to him. "I know I never told you, but it was because of what he said during his last visit." He holds his left hand in his right, running his thumb over his knuckles.

"What was it?" She asks catching up to him.

"It must of been after he first closed the breach in New York, well from his perspective it was. He told me he would rewrite this reality one day. That he would go back and he would end up with you," Percy says closing his eyes.

"That's-"

"Impossible, right?" Percy finishes for her. "I thought so too, but he used what limited power he had to show me a different timeline, and it hurt to look at." They managed to catch up to the group. Annabeth mentally curses them for interrupting their conversation.

"What is it?" Annabeth asks Piper.

"Reyna is running out of steam. Using a clone as a scout means that she walked twice the distance as we did. She needs to rest for a bit, so we are taking a short break." She looks at Percy and Annabeth. "You guys can finish your talk," she says weakly smiling before joining Thalia and Jason, who were standing next to a rock. Annabeth quickly glances at what the others are doing. Reyna was leaning against a tree with Sally trying to feed her water and chips and Drew fixing her hair. Rachel pulled out a sketchbook and was drawing something, with Noire trying to peek at it subtly. She turns back to Percy and they sit on a small rock.

"You said he showed you a different timeline?" she asks.

"He showed me a timeline where I was the one who climbed into the time anomaly after we beat Luke's evil doppleganger. Unlike Luke, I didn't live outside of time, I just disappeared. Most of what happened afterwards was the same, but Luke was there instead of me. Since Luke had already graduated, you didn't feel a pressure to go to NYU." She turns to look at him. "Yeah, I know you only went there for me. I know you got into Yale, your mom used it as ammunition to prove I shouldn't be with you." Annabeth looks at the ground in front of her. It was true that she got into Yale, but it wasn't like she wanted to go. Her mom forced her to apply and wouldn't speak to her for a week when she refused the offer. "In that timeline, you went to Columbia. Became a famous historian of Greek and Roman history, on top of being a famous architect. You made a few major buildings that added to the Manhattan skyline. Your mom and you were pretty close there, probably because she likes Luke a lot more than she likes me. You also didn't have to leave the city, like we did. You and Luke lived in a huge penthouse. But you weren't the only one who had a better life," Percy says looking back at the rest of the group. "The fight with Gaea never left the US. You guys were able to stop her in Richmond. Not only that, the destruction was so small, that they never made the restriction act. Most of them retired of their own volition. Leo didn't die, he and Cal got married and had a son. Jason didn't break off the engagement with Piper and wasn't estranged with Thalia. He and Piper had twins, and they were the best friends of yours and Luke's son." Percy brushes some dirt off of his jeans. "It wasn't real, but it felt real." Annabeth leaned over and pulled his face to hers. She closes her eyes as she kisses him.

"That was real. What he showed you wasn't," she whispers to him. She pulls him into a hug and squeezes him tightly.

"Thanks Wise Girl."

"Don't keep something like this from me. Don't suffer alone." They stay like this for a while before Thalia interrupts.

"Hey, you two done over there?" Annabeth hears Thalia call out. She pulls away from Percy and smiles at him.

"We're done," she calls back.

"Good, let's go, I don't want to be here all night," Drew says. They all regroup around Reyna to make sure she's okay. She was sweating a lot, most likely due to her use of her replication power.

"Are you okay?" Jason asks, crouching next to her.

"I'm fine, I just needed a bit of rest. I walked twice as far as you guys so far," Reyna says standing up. She brushes dirt off of her toga and grabs her helmet. "Why did you braid my hair?" she asks Drew as she pulls her helmet on.

"It looks good on you. You need to keep up a decent appearance honey." Reyna's hand slowly floats over her sword before she quickly turn and starts making a path towards the jump jet. The rest of the group glances around at each other before rushing off to catch up to her. Jason floats above them all as the rest of them trek through the jungle. Sally was leading Rachel by the hand, with Piper there to make sure she doesn't move too fast for Rachel. Drew was holding Noire's hand, with the young girls other hand clutching the ring that Drew gave her. Percy and Annabeth walk together behind Reyna and Thalia, who seem to be deep in discussion. Annabeth hears leaves rustle behind her and she whips around pulling her gun out, but not aiming it. She sees that Rachel had stumbled slightly when Sally let go of her hand. Sally was pulling out a jar and putting some mossy rocks on them.

"You okay?" she asks Rachel. Rachel nods slightly. Sally puts the rock back into her backpack and grabs Rachel's hand again. Annabeth turns around and sees Percy with a confused look.

"So you really get jealous of Rachel?" he asks in a quiet voice. She raises an eyebrow at him.

"Seriously?" she asks in disbelief.

"It sorta just hit me," he says with a confused look. She reaches up and smacks him in the back of the head.

"I do. I know you wouldn't do anything, but I can't help it." Percy puts his arm around her neck.

"I guess we both have insecurities," he say pulling her close. Jason comes down in front of Reyna. Percy takes his arm off and puts his hand on his sword. Annabeth puts her right hand on her handgun and her left on her dagger.

"What's going on?" Reyna asks pulling her sword out of its sheath.

"There are drones overhead, looks like they know we are here," Jason says.

"How much farther from the ship?" Percy asks. Jason shrugs.

"About a mile, maybe more." Percy turns the the rest of the group.

"Looks like we need to move quickly," he says taking his trident off of his back. He hands it to Annabeth, which she takes, and crouches down. "Hop on Sally." Sally looks around confused, but gets on her father's back nonetheless. Jason offers to carry Noire, but the girl looks so scared that Drew declined. Jason takes her bow as she picks her daughter up. Jason takes Rachel's hand as they run through the jungle. It takes them about fifteen minutes to make it to the clearing where they parked the jump jet. When they get there, they see DSR soldiers looking at the jump jet. There were about twenty group crouches in the treeline to stay out of sight. Percy looks at her for a plan.

"We need to rush it. Thalia, Piper, Jason, and I can draw their fire as the rest of you get to the ship. You guys can cover us as we make our way there," she decides. The group seems to agree with her plan. Percy grabs her hand and squeezes it before getting ready to run. Annabeth holds Percy's trident in her right hand and heads over to the right. The four people in the distraction team sneak their way along the treeline to the end up being perpendicular to the path that the other team will be taking to the ship. Annabeth feels the wind and quickly calculates how much it would affect the path of her weapons. She takes aim at one of the closest soldiers and throws Percy's trident. As soon as the pronged weapon collides with the soldier, electrical sparks erupt from it and it knocks the man unconscious. This cues the rest of the group to open fire on the unsuspecting soldiers. They were all using non-lethal weapons to ensure that they don't kill them. Once they knock enough of them out, they leave the treeline and start making their way to the ship. Annabeth draws her dagger and enables the stun mode. She runs up to one of the soldiers and points thier gun towards the ground. She shocks their right arm using her knife and kicks him as she pulls the gun from their hand. She unloads the rifle and throws it at another soldier. She looks to her right and sees Piper do a flip and fire sleep darts at one of the soldiers. Jason is locked with a soldier, who blocked his lance with their rifle. They push his lance out of the way and bash him in the head with the butt of their rifle. They were about to shoot when Thalia hits them with an arrow with a tennis ball on the end of it. It stuns them long enough for Thalia to knock them with her bow.

"Get up, you look so lame," Thalia says offering her brother a hand. Jason takes it and they make it to the entrance to the ship. On the ramp to the ship were a few unconscious soldiers.

"You missed a few," Rachel says, some energy coming off of her glowing submachine gun. "Don't worry, the spirit bullets just knock them out," she says dispelling her gun. As they enter the ship, Jason stumbles Piper catches him. Annabeth looks closely and sees that he was bleeding from a head wound.

"I'm fine," Jason says trying to stand up.

"You're bleeding," Percy says pulling out some gauze. He wraps his head up and buckles him into one of the seats. Annabeth turns to the entrance and sees Thalia throwing the bodies off of the ramp and onto the floor. Sally was stuffing all of the random stuff she brought back into her backpack as everybody buckles in. Annabeth guides her to the seat next to her and helps buckle her in.

"Everybody strapped in?" Piper asks. Not even a second passes as the engines roar to life and the ship takes off. Annabeth looks to the cockpit and sees that Rachel had taken the co-pilots seat. Thalia was sitting next to Jason with her eyes closed and her hands gripping the harness that keeps them in the ship. Drew sat next to Jason, with Noire on the other side.

"You okay Thals?" Percy asks smirking.

"Shut it Jackson or else I'm throwing up down your hoodie," she says not opening her eyes. Sally pulls on Annabeth's sleeve and points at Thalia.

"She doesn't like flying," Annabeth explains to her. A beeping sound comes from the cockpit.

"That's not good," Piper says. Annabeth unbuckles her harness and climbs into the cockpit.

"What's not good?" she asks looking at the computer console.

"Flying humanoid chasing the jump jet. And it's moving fast," Rachel says.

"I'll stop him," Jason says unbuckling his harness. He tries to stand, but falls down. Annabeth rushes over and puts him back into his seat.

"You stay here." She turns to look at Percy before turning back around. "I'll stop him." Annabeth stands up and draws her handgun out.

"No more than three," Percy says. She nods. She goes to the back and opens the cargo door.

"Be safe Mommy," Sally says. She smiles at her daughter and blows her a kiss. Annabeth turns around and faces the open cargo door.

"Maia," she shouts. Her boots then activate and she starts floating. Annabeth grabs the top of the ship and flips on top of it. "Meno," she command and her boots stick to the roof of the ship. She looks up from her crouched position and sees a man covered in gold energy flying at the ship. When he gets to the ship, he flies into a standing position and gives her a wicked smile.

"Looks like I found some sheep to slaughter," he says with an evil laugh.

* * *

 **Next update: December 8th (my birthday)**

 **For the four of you who really like this story, I will post another chapter of the anthology later today. it is titled: "The Man Out of Time" Thanks, please follow and review.**


	12. Chapter 11

Name: Annabeth (Chase) Jackson

Occupation: High School Teacher, Mother, Author, Architect, Hero

Alias: Minerva

Date: December 28th XX24

Chapter 11: Sky

Annabeth watches the man float in front of her. He was not only covered in gold energy, but had gold accents on his black outfit.

"Oh my, where are my manors? My name is Chrysaor." He holds his arms out and two gold orbs form on his hands. He brings them together and aims it at Annabeth. A gold beam streaks out at her. She pushes off of the ship and floats in the air. The beam hits the ship and it seems to melt part of the ship.

"Maia," she shouts and her boots come to life. She draws her handgun and fires a volley of shots at him from varying angles as she flies around him. The rubber bullets disintegrate before they reach him, as does the gas that they expel.

"Your baby bullets will not be able to stop me. My gold burns too bright," he says releasing a wave of energy off of him. It hits Annabeth and it sends her crashing into the ship. The ship sways a bit before fixing itself and leveling off. Annabeth closes her eyes and concentrates on the darkness. She hears a familiar click in her mind and she opens her eyes. When she opens her eyes, the world was gray, no color was reaching her eyes. She opens her hands before balling them up into a fist. She put her hand gun away and pulls out her dagger. She jumps off of the ship and quickly swipes at him with her dagger using her new strength and speed. "Excellent, I want a challenge."

"You got one," she says. She makes a u-turn in the air and flies right at him. The energy gathers at his fist and he fires small orbs of energy at her. She dodges them with ease and strikes. She uses the momentum she gathered from flying at him and kicks him with both feet, launching him into the ship. She chases after and punches at him with her right fist. He rolls out of the way and her fist dents the ship. Pain erupts from her knuckles as the contact the metal ship. While she was recoiling from that failed attack, he knocks her back off of the ship and flies at her. She closes her eyes and focuses on the smells around her. A familiar click in her mind happens and she can't smell anything. She opens her eyes and flies out of the way of his next strike. Like before, she flies faster than she did before due to the boots using her leg strength to dictate speed. She flies straight back at him and repeats what she had done previously. This time, the increase in speed means that she stuck him before he could dodge out of the way. Her punch has enough force to knock him into the ship and bounce off of it. As her punch connects with his chest, she feels something underneath his shirt, feeling similar to tubes. "Meno," she says and her boots lock her feet onto the ship. She draws her handgun and quickly changes magazines. Despite being unable to tell the difference in the color of the clips, she can feel the difference in weight between real bullets and rubber bullets. She loads another magazine of rubber bullets and takes aim. Her brain quickly calculates the wind, the speed of the jump jet, the speed at which he could react, and potential paths that the bullets could fly on given those condition. She fires another volley of bullets, this time aiming specifically for areas in which the energy appears to be less dense. The bullets make contact with him and seem to be bouncing off of his chest in ways that indicate that there is something underneath his shirt. This seems to anger him as energy radiates off of him heating the air around them. The heat starts to make her feel fatigued. She drops to a knee and closes her eyes. She focuses on the heat around her, the heat from Chrysaor, the heat from the sun, and the heat from the ship. She even focuses the heat from her breath. Another familiar click in her mind and the heat goes away. The heat doesn't affect her because she can not perceive the heat. She opens her eyes and stands up. She looks around and sees that the unmanned drones from before have found the jump ship and were now flying towards it in formation. She jumps off of the ship and quickly flies at the drones that are closing in on the jump ship. She uses her dagger to slice through the drones as they get close, all the while dodging energy blasts from Chrysaor. She keeps hacking and slashing at the drones, but with the sheer number of them and the blasts that she has to dodge make the battle seem hopeless. She closes her eyes and whisper an apology to Percy. She focuses on her voice, and another click happens. She lost her voice to gain strength and speed. Annabeth launches herself at the drones again, but this time use them as ammunition. She throws them at Chrysaor, who is forced to destroy his own forces to save his own life. She throws one more at him and follows behind it. She draws her dagger and as the drone explodes in front of her, she slashes at him. The dagger cuts through his shirt and slices a tube. As she cuts it, a liquid erupts from it and the energy seems to destabilize around him. He grabs her and throws her at the jump ship. She crashes into it and is dazed as she lands on her back. She opens her eyes and sees a energy bolt flying at her. She wasn't able to move fast enough, and the bolt strikes her in the side. The drones then circle around and begin firing at her and the jump ship. She swings her dagger around at a quick speed and attempts to deflect the bullets as they fly at her, but some still strike her. One drone flies straight at the jump ship and collides with the thruster. The jump ship begins to spiral out of control. She grabs the metal plating to stop from flying off of it. She looks up and sees Chrysaor struggling to stay afloat. He glares at her one more time before fleeing. Annabeth reaches up with one hand and taps on her ear piece.

"Don't know what's happening, but the left thruster is damaged," she hears Piper say. She opens her mouth to speak, but nothing comes out.

"Can you do anything about it?" she hears Drew ask.

"No, the metal around it warped in. It's forcing the fuel faster than the other. I can't compensate for that," Piper says.

"Are we going to-" Percy starts to ask.

"Don't say that word," Thalia says before Annabeth hears her vomit.

"Group up, I should be able to get us all to the surface after we hit the water," Percy says in a panicked voice. Annabeth's brain begins to calculate the odds of that occurring and it was less than forty percent, based on the size of the group and the fact that Percy was injured and was in a fight previously. Annabeth crawls to the thruster, despite the pain erupting from her sides and arms. When she gets there she sees that the thruster was collapsed in the middle. She looks around her to see if she could use something to pry it open, but there was nothing. She looks at her gloved hand and decides on a course of action. While holding the ship with her left hand, she punches her fist into the wound where the bolt had hit her. She screams as she feels the pain erupt. She closes her eyes and focuses on it. The fifth click happens and the pain fades. Not fades, but she just can't feel it. She pulls herself to the thruster and puts a hand on both sides of it. She pulls with all of her new strength and actually starts to bend the metal.

"Holy shit, I'm getting control of the thruster," Piper says in surprise.

"What how is that possible?" she hears Jason ask. Annabeth grunts as she pulls harder, trying to get the metal at least into a position where Piper would be able to fly the ship.

"Its as if the metal opening up," Piper says. "Come on, just a bit more," she hears her say. Annabeth closes her eyes and yells as she pulls it all the way open.

"What is-" she hears Percy start to say. Annabeth starts to feel woozy. "Annabeth!" she hears him cry. She tries to let go of the thruster, but it feels like her hands were stuck there.. She pulls hard and sees that her gloves had completely melted and her hands were very badly burned. They didn't even look like hands anymore, she could almost see the bone on one of her fingers. Everything was fading in and out. She feels her strength waning and her sense slowly come back to her. Her hands hurt, the pain was unbearable. She could smell the burning skin and see how black and red her hands were. Her once dark grey suit was now dark red. She loses her footing and falls off of the ship. As she falls, she watches the ship fly farther. She smiles weakly, knowing her daughter will live. She hits the water and more pain hits her. She sees something fall off the jump jet as she starts to sink. She tried to swim, or at least stay afloat, but the pain kept her movements from actually doing anything. She feels something grab her and she feels like she was ascending. She tries to open her eyes, but isn't able to.

The next few moments are a blur. She faintly hears someone calling her name. She feels like her is moving quickly, and the wind is enough to the wounds all around her body. Someone opens her eyes one by one and shine a light into them. The voices around her are muffled and hard to focus on. Annabeth feels something stick into her and she passes out.

When she comes to, she wasn't sure where she was. She opens her eyes and sees that she was wearing a hospital gown. She moves one of her fingers and feels a sharp pain. Both of her hands and her forearms were covered in bandages. She moves her left hand over to her right and tries to pull it off.

"No, no. Don't take it off," she hears next to her. She looks to her right and sees Percy rubbing his eyes as he leans in. She looks around him and sees that there was a pillow and a blanket on the chair.

"I'm sorry," she says, tears forming in her eyes. Percy leans in and takes her bandaged hand in his.

"It's okay. You did it to save us, to save Sally," he says rubbing his thumb over hers. Despite there being gauze, her skin felt very sensitive. "Sorry," he says as he realizes that it was sensitive. She looks at his face and sees that his eyes were red from crying and that there were bags under his eyes. She glances down at her bandaged hands.

"How bad?" she asks, her throat very dry. Percy reaches over and pours her a cup of water. He holds it to her mouth and she starts to drink from it.

"Even with Will, Cassie, and the healing chamber, it will take a few days, maybe a week for a full recovery." The curtain opens and she sees Will and Thalia.

"Good you're awake," Will says grabbing a clipboard from the base of her bed. He flips a few pages before putting it back down. Thalia leans on Percy's chair and bites into an apple that was sitting on the table beside him. "I was worried you would sleep longer," Will says writing something on the clipboard.

"How long was I out?" she asks confused. Percy and Thalia look at each other before turning back to her.

"Almost four days," Percy says.

"Four days?" she asks sitting up slightly. She winces as she used her hand to try and prop herself up.

"Well it makes sense, you lost a lot of blood and a lot of damage was done. I assume you used your powers as not only were your hands burned very severely, but you have a a few fractured ribs. Don't worry we fixed those up," Will says putting the clipboard down. "You just need to rest for the next few days as we heal your hands." Will nods slightly and leaves.

"Good job Annie, you get to lay in bed for a week," Thalia says, pulling up a chair of her own. She hops into it and crosses her legs while leaning back in the chair. She had changed into what she normally wears; black ripped jeans, a black t-shirt with a some band on it, and black boots. She was wearing purple lipstick and a lot of mascara. Her hair hair was down and she wore a small tinfoil tiara in it.

"Is everybody okay?" she asks Thalia. She takes another bite of her apple before answering.

"Yeah. A little bruised up, but mostly fine. Ship took some damaged, so we are stuck off the shore of Brazil until Valdez fixes it," Thalia says looking at her fingernails.

"Thals was fine after she threw up," Percy says with a laugh. Thalia glares at him and holds her apple up.

"I can kill you with this apple," she threatens. Percy rolls his eyes at her threat.

"Sally is fine. I'm having her help Leo with the jump jet to try to keep her mind off of you being here," Percy says.

"Where is Freddy?" she asks. Percy opens another curtain and shows her son was cuddling his water wolf. She breathes a breath of relief before Percy's words hit her.

"Wait, Sally knows how to fix the jump jet?" Annabeth asks in disbelief.

"Yup, you have a tiny engineering genius on your hands. She's just like you," Thalia says. Almost on cue, Sally come running into the room and almost immediately starts crying.

"MOMMY!" she cries, running over to Annabeth's bed. She climbs up it and hugs her chest really tight and cries into her hospital gown.

"I'm okay sweetie," she says putting her arms around her. It hurt to hug her, but Annabeth fought through it.

"I TOLD YOU TO BE SAFE!" Sally says between her cries. Freddy stirs a little bit, but he continues to sleep.

"I did it to keep you safe." Annabeth strokes her daughter's hair as best as she could. Sally nods and cries for a few minutes before she is able to calm down. Sally moves up kisses her cheek and climbs off of the bed, careful not to touch Annabeth's arms at all. She goes to the next bed and sits on it, staring at her mother. Percy pulls out his phone and looks at the clock.

"What do you know, it's a new year," Percy says. He leans in and they kiss. They hear Sally and Thalia making sounds of disgust off to the side. He pulls away and sits back in his chair. She looks over and sees that both Thalia and Sally were covering their eyes.

"Come on Thals, you'd think you were used to it by now," she says to her friend.

"I can be used to it and still not like it," she retorts fixing her tiara.

"The Sky Princess title getting to you?" Percy asks pointing at her new headpiece.

"Noire made it for me. Poor girl. I would hate to have Drew as my mom," Thalia says.

"The new girl?" Sally asks, her head tilted to the side. Percy nods. "She is shy," Sally says. She falls over and closes her eyes, apparently deciding to sleep on the bed in the medbay.

"Knock knock?" Annabeth hears from the entrance. She looks and sees Leo standing in the doorway.

"Come in," Percy says getting another chair.

"Thanks," Leo says. He looks very confused.

"What brings you here at this hour?" Thalia asks from her seat. Leo opens his mouth before he starts to think some more.

"I doubt you'll believe me if I told you. I wouldn't believe you if you told me," Leo says. He leans against the chair that Percy brought over.

"Try us," Percy says. Leo takes a breath before talking.

"A man appears out of nowhere, and I literally mean nowhere, and starts telling me a story before telling me that I should come here because there will be news about Calypso," he says getting quieter as he speaks. "I honestly don't know why I even came," Leo says turning to the exit.

"Wait," Percy says. "This guy, was he blonde?" Annabeth looks at him, clearly thinking of the same person he was.

"Yeah." Percy sighed before pulling his phone out.

"His name is Luke," he tells Leo before he turns to look at Annabeth. "Sorry, our phone bill will probably be pretty big," Percy says to Annabeth. He turns back towards Leo. "When we were leaving the Amazon, apparently we hit an area with cellular service. I didn't realize it until yesterday, but I got a voicemail that day." Percy taps on his phone and sets it on Annabeth's bed.

"Hello?" the voice on the phone said. Leo slowly sat down when he heard the voice. "Hey Percy it's me. It's Calypso in case you forgot my voice." Annabeth sees Leo's hand cover his mouth as he leans forward. I saw what happened in Texas a few days ago and saw you on the news. I got this number from your mom, she was a bit worried so you should probably give her a call." There was a shuffle on her end of the phone. "I guess you guys are meeting up again, based on what has been happening that seems like a good idea. I wish I knew you guys were in Florida, bad timing I guess." Annabeth sees Leo swallow hard. "I was actually there when you guys were there, in Key West. I guess if I had my comm device with me I would have known," she says chuckling. "What I don't know is how you guys are getting from place to place since the Argos is destroyed." Annabeth looks at Percy, who was just staring at the phone. "Either way, we need to get together. So-" Calypso is cut off by a voice that was away from the phone. "Hold on sweetie, Mommy is on the phone," Annabeth hears faintly on the other end of the line. Leo closes his eyes and runs his hand through his curly hair. "Sorry. If you guys can make it to DC, then great. If not, let me know where you are. We can get on the first flight there. I already have a bag packed. Until next time." The line goes dead and the room goes silent. Percy and Annabeth look at Leo to see his reaction. He seems both happy and sad at the same time. Annabeth's brain begins to visualize and recreate a scenario that was similar to what he is experiencing. If she had disappeared and come back to find Percy had a child, it was heartbreaking to think of. She feels Percy put his hand gently on hers. She looks at him, it was as if he knew what she was picturing. Leo stands up.

"I guess I should work on the ship," he says getting up and leaving the room. He almost bumps into Travis who was walking into the room. Travis spins out of the way heads over to their bed, careful not to be too loud as there were kids sleeping.

"Does anyone sleep on this ship?" Percy asks.

"To be fair, I only need four hours of sleep. No idea why," Travis says twirling a capped test tube in his hand. Inside the test tube was a gold liquid. He twirls it a few times before tapping it against his leg. He then starts to throw it in the air, obviously waiting for someone to ask him about it.

"What's in the test tube?" Annabeth asks, mostly to stop him from flinging things in the air.

"I am glad you asked," he says catching the vial with two fingers. "When Annabeth was getting all crispy, I was running around the ocean trying to take out as many drones as I could. That's when I saw this gold liquid dripping. So I quickly took a test tube and got as much as I could. Of course this kinda led to the engines getting damaged again, but I take no fault."

"What is it?" Percy asks looking at the liquid. Travis hands it to Percy and he shakes it a bit. "It's very viscous."

"No idea. All I know is that it's not flammable, not corrosive, not a irritant, and doesn't react to Mages."

"How do you know that?" Annabeth asks, very concerned.

"I may or may not have spilled some of it on Dakota, and he may or may not have tried to use fire magic to set me and it on fire." Travis brushes a hair out of his face. "Got to go, I want some McDonalds. I'll leave that to the science nerds, and Percy." With that Travis vanishes, some papers flutter to the ground as he leaves.

"I'm a biology teacher," Percy says. He sighs and looks at the liquid again. "Wonder what this is."

"I guess that makes it another mystery about the DSR." Annabeth leans back. "A mystery for tomorrow," she says as she falls back asleep.

* * *

 **Hey guys, sorry for updating later in the day than normal. If you haven't seen it yet, check out the new chapter of the anthology that gives more background of Luke and the east coast heroes. Next update will be a week later than normal because I won't have much access to the internet near the end of the year.**

 **Next update: January 5th.**


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